Virtual Monday

So it's arrived: The virtual Monday of the last work week of the year.

I could tell I was back by the fact that my ability to sleep through the night magically went away and I woke up far before the alarm instead of gracefully coming out of sleep.

In a way, I can tell my time away was a good one simply because I did not think of work once. Not a single time - no "I forgot to take care of this" or "There are five things I have to do when I get back". Which is great for vacation of course - but it all comes rolling down on your head all the harder when you get back.

Which, I suppose, should tell me something else.

I read Gene Logsdon's The Last of the Husbandmen: A Novel of Farming Life which I got for Christmas yesterday. I love anything that Logsdon writes so that alone was a pleasure; the fact that the book chronicles the fictional life of a young man who essentially comes back to traditional farming as a career and the life he and his extended family live over a forty five year period. There is something in reading his books, even in going up to The Ranch, that gives me a deep sense of rootedness that I fail to get when I contemplate leaving this computer and getting ready to go to work this morning.

Just random thoughts on a virtual Monday I suppose. But the thought still nags me: in the past decade, I've had 6 different jobs, bought two houses and sold one at a loss, and now lived in four different locations. For guy that (apparently) values rootedness and stability, I don't seem to be living my conviction.