“The Power
of Getting Away” was the spectacular title of a blog written by my Australian
blogmate Attila Ovari not long ago. The drift of his blog was: How often do
you detach yourself from your regular routine – the office, the news, national
politics – and just think about yourself and your family and your own needs and
wants?
But, to me, the title suggests so much more than that.
Getting away. O dear. If only we were able to get away – to
escape from our lives and “forget for
a while” (in JRR Tolkien’s words) “the dreadful doom of life.”
To bury our heads in the covers and sleep for another hour,
or two, or ten.
To call in sick to work for a day, or a week, or a couple of
years.
In a word: when something which is (presumably)
overpoweringly powerful requests your presence, to be able to say “no.”
Best of all, I think, was the late Rue McClanahan’s comment
on the TV show “Maude”
many years ago (I paraphrase, probably badly): “When it’s my time to die, I’m
going to be somewhere else.”
I want to be elsewhere when it’s my time too, if that’s at
all possible.
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