Vacations, perhaps especially on tropical islands, create inversions of our normal routines.
Instead of a steady block of workdays being punctuated by weekend breaks, we loll in continuos leisure, perhaps interrupted occasionally by the odd email or call that needs immediate servicing. Then, when the weekend arrives, it's time to head back home… and to work.
"Always on" is replaced by "I'm away".
Cocktail hour can start early and extend across lazy afternoons without one feeling a lush.
Travel far enough and time itself inverts from that held by our body clocks.
These inversions are the essential charm and character of vacations, and should be respected as such.
I came to think of this today when I found myself sitting in my poolside cabana, wirelessly connected to email, Facebook, Twitter, this blog, a mind-mapping program I've been using to capture thoughts on personnal planning and an idea database program I use to maintain my Getting Things Done disciplines… oh, and The Matrix was playing on the flat panel TV overhead. If my IPhone display hadn't failed the other day, I'm sure that I would have also been fiddling with a half dozen Apps.
Wait a minute!
Well, there's an App for vacation: close the laptop, turn off the TV, smile at your wife, laugh at yourself for getting sucked in, order a frozen refreshment and crack open a book. Worked like a charm.