Well, not really. But it kinda sucked.

Christmas is one of my favourite times of the year. So for the first time in five years, I used several vacation days to extend my days off. I was hoping to spend some time with my elderly grandfather, make lots of music with my aunt, see a whole bunch of movies in theatres, and spend time alone reading and writing.

On the 23rd, after a nearly perfect Christmas tree hunt, I went downtown to meet up with a best friend to watch Jackie at Eau Claire. Thanks to the nasty roads and snowfall, he was unable to show up. So I went into a pub to catch up on emails and ordered a large serving of fish and chips. The meal was too expensive and left a bad taste in the mouth. Frustrated, I went across the street to watch the excellent film Manchester by the Sea. I went to bed around midnight, excited for my vacation to begin.

At 3:10 am I woke up with an even worse taste in my mouth. "Just get rid of it and all will be well" I told myself. That was not so easily done.

It was nine hours later that I dared swallow a sip of water. It took the next twelve hours to get rehydrated, forty hours before I dared eat a full meal, and sixty before the diarrhea stopped. I was throwing up so hard that I burst blood vessels in my left eye, resulting in two days of hazing vision and looking like I'd survived a bar fight rather than food poisoning. It's now been four days and I'm still exhausted.

I'm surprised how easy I've fallen into despair. To not find enjoyment in the rich gifts around us is expected, for they can quickly grow old. But not finding hope and comfort on the truths and power of prayer and scripture is verging on inexcusable. I have so much to learn!

And then I saw reports of friends' Christmases. A trip to the emergency room on Christmas Day because an infant daughter is chocking. A Christmas Eve in the hospital due to colitis. A wife whose brain tumour has resulted in a hand refuses to recover and is throbbing with pain. Or even worse: a miscarriage.

So I resolve to enjoy these next few days off. It will be easy to look back with regret on time wasted and memories ruined. It will be tempting to find joy solely in the music I'll play, the movies I'll see, the friends I'll meet, the quite time I'll savour. What's the alternative? Perhaps it's knowing that these circumstances exist to humble us, to re-anchor us in something greater than the well-being that we have built up around us, that bursts so easily. When I am made aware of that again, contentment is possible. I can rest in someone outside of myself.

Travels 2015 is a series of updates I originally posted on Facebook while on vacation. What started as a quick update and a couple photos transformed into a series of mini-essays that I would have posted on this website had it been up and running at the time. This one was written on August 1st, 2015.

Since Grampie wasn't going to help me finish those remaining two dozen oysters, I thought had better get cracking and slurping. But were they still good to eat? "Check with Mum" was the advice given; after all, one doesn't cook for 30 people on a cross-Pacific-tropical-voyage-sans-refrigeration without developing a certain authority in these matters. She sniffed and felt the beasts and gave her okay, but just to be on the safe side I opted for frying them instead of eating them raw.

So I shucked the beauties (lots of work), and then made homemade breadcrumbs (more work), then breaded them (ahem, work, work, work), and waited for them to chill (an evening swim at the beach killed the time). My family watched the whole process, with cautious comments, while eating their leftover roast beef. Smart family.

They didn't quite taste right. Slightly bitter. And they looked a bit like fried chicken embryos. So after eating a couple I tossed the rest. Good thing it was before my agèd grandfather arrived in the kitchen hoping to give them a taste.

For all that wretched evening I slept very little, otherwise occupied in depositing every bit of food and liquid from my digestive track into the toilet bowl. I moaned and groaned, trying to match my melody with the beat of my twisting stomach (which was trying to replicate the stormy waters of the Sea of Galilee). Any drop of water I dared swallow was rejected with a vehemence, until my mum was calling the island nurse and speaking words like “intravenous tubes".

But the stomach relaxed after the food gave way and no rides to the mainland were needed. I slept all the next day, and all the next evening, and read in a hammock all the day following. While I was grieved to give up my precious holiday, I did ask myself "are there worse places to read than under an Arbutus tree, refreshed by the sea breeze?" And I remembered my pastor Gavin's story from his recent vacation and knew that I too was learning to trust and give up control. My rest is not my god.

P.S. Because my sleep cycle is now null, I spent last evening listing to Wendell Berry on audio book before finally walking down after midnight to the full-moon-lit-sandy-beach. I don't do this every night, folks. Just once in a blue moon.