A Different Kind of Spring Break
By Sue Pendleton, Founder
What if spring break didn’t mean going anywhere?
When we hear the words spring break, most of us picture leaving.
A trip.
A change of scenery.
A break from routine.
A few days that feel different from the rest.
And there’s something lovely about that idea. By the time spring arrives, many of us are ready for a little relief. The season itself seems to ask for it. The light has changed. The air feels different. Things are beginning again.
But lately, I’ve been thinking about a different kind of spring break.
Not a trip.
Not an escape.
Just a little room to think.
The luxury I protect most
Most mornings, I have an alarm set, and while my life is not nearly as hectic as it was when my children were little, I still tend to get up and start the day. Once my feet hit the floor, I’m moving.
A few years ago, after Covid, I realized I wanted to protect something I had come to value very deeply: a slower start.
So I began giving myself time to putter.
That’s the word I use for it, and I love it because it doesn’t ask very much. It doesn’t sound ambitious or optimized. It sounds gentle. Human. A little unhurried.
For me, puttering usually means sitting on the sofa with a cup of coffee, easing into the day, playing my New York Times puzzles, and letting myself wake up slowly instead of launching straight into motion.
I’ve come to think of that time as a luxury, and one I insist on protecting.
But there is an even deeper luxury I love more than all the rest.
Looking out the window
Our bedroom is on the second floor at the back of the house. Our backyard is very wooded, full of pine trees, and because there are no neighbors visible behind us, we don’t have window coverings on those back windows.
So when I lie on the bed and look out the window, it feels as if the whole frame opens into trees and sky.
I can get completely and utterly lost there.
Watching the pine trees sway.
Noticing the squirrels moving through the branches.
Seeing birds dart in and out.
Taking in whatever nature is doing that morning.
Sometimes one of our cats joins me. Sometimes it’s the dog. We simply lie there together and look out the window.
Nothing is being accomplished in any obvious way.
No project is being checked off.
No plan is being made.
And yet, something important is happening.
This is where my thinking comes back
I never lie down and tell myself, Now it’s time to think.
In fact, I don’t think that would work at all.
What happens instead is that I begin to drift a little. My attention softens. I stop pushing. And then, slowly, all kinds of things begin to bubble up.
Ideas.
Thoughts I hadn’t finished having.
Questions I didn’t realize were still with me.
Little moments of clarity.
Connections between things that seemed unrelated before.
Some of my best thinking happens there, in that unforced in-between place.
Not because I am trying harder.
But because I am not.
There’s something about stillness, about looking outward without demanding anything from myself, that seems to let my own thoughts rise to the surface.
And I realize, writing this, that I haven’t given myself enough of that lately.
Which may be exactly why “spring break” brought it so quickly to mind.
Creative minds need room to wander
We’ve talked before about how creative minds often need a little more time to process. Thoughts don’t always arrive in a straight line. They circle. They gather. They connect through wandering, not just through effort.
That’s one of the reasons I believe so strongly that creative lives need some room in them. Not endless room. Not a life without deadlines or responsibilities. But enough space for the mind to move in its own natural way.
I’m not talking about laziness. And I’m not talking about avoiding the work.
I’m talking about the kind of mental spaciousness that allows thought to emerge.
Creative people often do not think best on command. We think best when there is enough quiet for an idea to appear on its own. Enough softness for the deeper layers to catch up. Enough pause for the mind to wander somewhere useful without being yanked back too quickly.
We need to make room for thoughts to arrive.
Maybe this is the spring break I need
Maybe a break does not always have to mean going away.
Maybe sometimes it means stepping out of the usual pace.
Leaving a little more room around the edges.
Letting the morning begin more slowly.
Remembering that not all restoration looks active.
For me, that may mean protecting my puttering a little more fiercely.
It may mean climbing back onto the bed for ten quiet minutes and looking out at the trees.
It may mean letting myself stop reaching for input long enough to notice what is already there.
Spring has a way of making us think in terms of movement—travel, plans, activity, getting out, doing more. And sometimes that’s exactly right.
But sometimes spring can also be an invitation into something quieter.
A small softening.
A little more space.
A return to ourselves.
Not every break needs to look like much
From the outside, lying on a bed and looking out the window may not look like much.
It may even look like doing nothing.
But I don’t think it is nothing.
I think it is one of the ways I come back to myself.
One of the ways my thoughts have room to gather.
One of the ways my mind can loosen instead of perform.
One of the ways clarity returns without being chased.
Maybe that’s the kind of spring break creative minds sometimes need most.
Not a big getaway.
Not a dramatic reset.
Just enough stillness for our thoughts to catch up with us again.
