This year, I actually planned a trip over Thanksgiving break. Kinda.
By planned, I mean my friend bought a plane ticket and booked an AirBNB in Detroit, and I texted a colleague asking if I could crash, and we were going to make up the rest once November 21st hit. I am very adverse to the whole time-stamped itinerary of things to do with researched restaurant options—it’s one of the reasons that I can never reply to the whole company email chain about your best spring break trip. Like, does playing the entirety of Kingdom Hearts III over three days count?
Ever since I moved away from home, I have usually spent the lesser breaks—Thanksgiving, spring—as a nomad. I would sidle up to a friend and bat my eyelashes to be adopted for a day (or a week), and then I’d use the rest of break to complete overhanging work, get ahead, and dive deep into whatever leisure activity I was hooked on at the moment. I, unlike many young adults, did not catch the travel bug.
So it was out of character to go on a trip, even if that trip was only two hours away, and I expected to be a grouch about it. But after picking up my friend from the airport and seeing my colleague outside of our biannual required work trips, I cuddled up in her guest bed and thought, You know, taking trips isn’t so bad.
Despite all of my fears, the fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants-once-we-get-there plan somewhat worked out, mostly due to my colleague who had all of the good Detroit recommendations and the fact that neither I nor my friend felt the need to fill the days we had together to the brim. We walked around Bell Isle and the Detroit Institute of Art, ate a Coney dog, and took two trips on the People Mover; we cooked far too much food for a two-person Thanksgiving, played Mario Kart and rhythm games, and watched four of my all-time favorite movies on the postage stamp sized TV from my college days.
In the midst of all of this, I listened to “The Secret to a Long Life,” one of the Radiolab episodes that I picked at random the last time I downloaded podcasts. Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Radiolab producer, decided her life was moving too fast and she wanted to do something about it. The gist of the research she did was that our brain tracks time through memories, and making more memories helps stretch time. As podcasts are wont to do, Gnanasambandan takes this information and dials it to eleven—she runs an experiment where for a week she only does new things. And I mean only: she sleeps in places she’s never been, eats food she’s never had, does activities she’s never done. I was exhausted listening to it, frankly.
But out of all the times I could have listened to this episode, it was during my own week of many new memories. I marveled at the timing—me, the fuddy-duddy whose weeks pass her by, living and loving her routine, actually making my vacation last the longest it can.
At the end, one of the hosts laments how little moments in her life, like a dance with her kid, will be wiped from her memory because it’s not important enough. The other host interrupts and says essentially, “Hey, no! We want people to try new things, lengthen their life!” First host backtracks a bit but persists: these mundane moments matter. How can we keep them? They then present the alternative strategy of paying attention, making things new, as a way to help our brain capture those memories. Which is good and all, but I was left wondering, Why do we care about life being long in the first place?
I enjoyed my trip, and I was not thrilled to log back into work on Monday, but I’m not concerned about my weeks passing me by as I settle back into my routine. If I’m happy doing the same things over and over again, if that makes my life feel shorter, well, why does it matter?
Maybe that makes me boring. Maybe I’ll look back on my twenties and say, “She should have been at the club!” or “Wow, I wish I could remember more.” But maybe I’ll be satisfied, looking back and thinking, “All I recall is that Coney dogs definitely surpassed my expectations.”
Photo taken at the Heidelberg Project
Alex Johnson (‘19) is a virtual computer science teacher and a proud resident of Grand Rapids. When she’s not brainstorming the newest project to inflict on her students, she’s cooking semi-vegetarian food, reading too many romance books, and playing rhythm games.
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playing kingdom hearts /always/ counts