Vactaion Never Ends, It Just Changes Location

The Ron Howard opus, "Night Shift" (more work for his mutant brother Clint!) contains one of my favorite bits of etymology in film. There is a scene in which Billy Blaze, played by Michael Keaton, derives the meaning of the word "prostitution". "TION of course, from the Latin to shun... to say uh-uh no thank you anyway I don't want it, to push away... it doesn't even belong in this word really." I believe that the "shun" in "vacation" most definitely belongs in the word, as in "uh-uh no thank you anyway I don't want it, to push away..." the must do's and gotta's that surround us during the rest of the year. And "vacate" is simple enough - to flee, or run away. This is the way I always imagine the month or two that I get between the end of school in June and the return in August. Somewhere in my mind is a vision of a hammock and a glass of lemonade. I imagine the quiet and calm. I dream of sleeping in.
But there is a set of realities that keep me from sleeping for six weeks. I'm a husband. I'm a father. I'm a dog owner. These other creatures in my life have their own views of how time can be spent, and they are anxious to share those ideas with me. Did I mention that I am also a home owner? I can hear the mute cries of my property and the various surfaces that need to be painted, pounded and finessed back into place. And to be completely fair, I have never been any good at sitting still. I would love to figure out a good place to hang a hammock, and then move on to another project that would move me further away from actually falling down into it. The trees need pruning, and the fruit will rot on the ground if we don't bother to pick it off the branches. My son would like to have me play a few hours of video games when I'm done with that and there are dozens of hikes in the hills that my wife would love to share with me. My dog begins her ambivalence about being out or in just before seven in the morning. We all have places we want to go, things we want to do, and people we want to see.
The time has come, the walrus said, to speak of other things: of shoes, and ships and enamel paint, of cabbages and water guns. Vacation time is here at last, and one thing is certain: there will be more time to discuss how we spend our time together, even if we can't all agree on what it is that we end up doing.