I mentioned in my last blog that Jan and I were celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary with a short vacation getaway on Captiva Island, sans computers.
Some who know my proclivity for keeping Mr. Macbook at hand might wonder, “How did that work for you?”
It felt weird.
It felt good.
It also felt a bit like cheating, because we both had our Blackberries along, though we didn’t check them often. Even so, there was very little e-mail for me to receive, given that there’s sparse Campbell e-mail on the weekends, and the Baptists Today email host went down two days before we left — and remained out of commission until today (Wednesday).
Any mail sent to that account between May 21 and 26 disappeared into the black hole of cyberspace, never to be seen unless those who sent them take note of their “undeliverable” response and try again.
During our joyful, memorable trip we hung out at the pool, looked for shells on the beach, and watched the sun set over the Gulf every night. We tooled around nature preserves in a rented HHR and admired wildlife ranging from manatees to ospreys. I read a fun novel (Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaimon), waded through a backlog of magazines, and worked a bunch of Sudoku puzzles I’d been saving up. I gave little thought to email, or to blogging, or to writing anything more than my name at the bottom of a charge slip from of a restaurant or golf course.
Did I mention a golf course? The north end of the island has an impressive, immaculately groomed “Short Course” (all Par 3’s but not necessarily short ones), with breathtaking views on every hole. By the time we rented clubs and paid the fee, it was far more than we normally pay to play, but I don’t regret a nickel of it. Not only did I get to play golf with my wife in a paradise-like setting, but we had the course almost completely to ourselves. If we’d been featured on an American Express commercial, the announcer would have said “Priceless.”
I don’t know about the golf, but being married to Jan for 25 years goes beyond being priceless to me. I’ll be 82 if we live long enough to celebrate 50 years, so it’s unlikely we’ll be playing golf — but somehow I don’t think it will matter.
[Photos by Jan, except the one in which she’s driving the car.]
Professor of Old Testament at Campbell University Divinity School in Buies Creek, North Carolina, and the Contributing Editor and Curriculum Writer at Good Faith Media.
