Vacation: getting ready without stress (!)

We leave on vacation tomorrow, and the suitcases aren't even in the house yet. This is weird, given how I usually do things, but I think it's good.

This is the least stressed about vacation I've ever been in my life.

Generally, the days leading up to departure are wound more and more tightly. Normally I'm up all night the eve of departure trying to finish all of my work, ticking tasks off pages-long To Do lists until the wee hours. There's generally a moment when I cry out, This is so not worth it, I don't even want to go! There are tears, some rage, gnashing.

Not so this time.

It's not as though I'm completely unprepared. I did go to the supermarket this weekend, so little cans of jalapeno chiles are lined up on the kitchen counter, along with coffee and decaf black tea, all Must Haves. Tonight I'll pick up tortillas for my mother and add those to the pile. My clothes are in the dryer, waiting to be folded and organized pre-suitcase. But I feel, uncharacteristically, like there's tons of time.

I'm so relaxed about it. Like I said, it's weird.

What I am doing most actively to get ready is loading books on my Kindle.  I still need to figure out the whole borrowing-from-the-library thing, but since I have a big credit on my Amazon account, I haven't worried about that yet. Here's who's coming with me (so far):

Jenni Fagan, The Panopticon: A Novel

Jeannette Walls, The Silver Star: A Novel

Laurie King, The Pirate King & Garment of Shadows (Mary Russell #11 and #12, I love this series)

Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being

NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names: A Novel

Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Hah, look at that: all novels authored by women!

I'll bring two actual books -- The Whole Fromage: Adventures in the Delectable World of French Cheese which I'm reading for book club, and Queen's Gambit: A Novel which I ordered in the pre-Kindle era -- and  Vogue magazine, but that's it.  

All this calm could evaporate in the next 24 hours. Who knows: maybe I will end up freaking out at 2am and ruing all this foolish leisure. But I think I've done everything differently this time, better, so probably not.

And that, seriously, will be the best gift of this trip, even before we check our bags: to know that I did this without graying my own hair, filled with rage and despair.

Maybe, just maybe, I'm actually learning something, old dog learning new tricks all the time, replacing old unpleasant patterns with something better, sweeter. What a treat to myself that would be, better even than Le Kindle, maybe, maybe, maybe.

XX