Sick Days

Growing up, I was taught that as much, or more, can be learned outside the classroom as in. My dad, being the outdoorsman that he is, believed that nature, the woods and the mountains and the vast emptiness of the skies, were an environment ripe for learning. And so we learned. I learned that it’s better muster the strength to go to class when ill, in order to save your sick days for when you are best equipped to take advantage of their gift. The best “sick days” are the ones in which you are most healthy, lively, adventurous, and exuberant. The best sick days are the ones in which school and work are hours away and the only thing you need to be taught is whatever the world chooses to show you. The best sick days are when you wake up at 3am and drive through fading city lights to reach the thick and impenetrable darkness of the desert night, or when you find yourself in the salty playground of the ocean before the sun begins to peek over the cliff tops, and the waves reflect no light but the moon’s and the stars’. The best sick days are, indeed, the ones in which you are not sick, not even close.


It was with this in mind that Sarah and I boarded a train in yesterday’s morning light. We had a backpack and a camera, and school was right where it should be, miles away. Sarah had taken the GRE the day before, and we both felt that a mental health day was in order. We boarded the train and watched the lazy coast slip by, and I secretly hoped an animated Tom Hanks would take us by the hand and lead us to the roof for an even better view.

When the wheels screeched and slowed an hour later, we stepped onto the platform and into a new city. We wandered in search of a hearty brunch. Our feet took us up past the red-domed mission that loomed overhead, and eventually across to the river road where our noses told us we had found what we were looking for.

At a quaint home-turned-restaurant there was a wooden sign reading, “Ramos House Café.” We sat and let the morning breeze waft scents of fresh biscuits and eggs and apple-butter and bacon around us. A small card on the table told us the proprietor lived in the very house we were eating at, and we felt like long-awaited guests at the table of a most welcoming host. The food arrived in an elegant pile, if ever there was such a thing, and we savored the hot meal and sipped crisp melon-water from mason jars. And when we were done we walked off, satisfied and grateful for the small and timeless pleasures of life, like the lingering taste of a perfect breakfast on your tongue.

We passed the rest of the day in slow movements. From the café our feet carried us to a park where we stared at the sky ‘til our eyes watered, and we laughed with our bellies.

We pretended to be architects and built a house of paper and ink, while drinking coffee from cups covered in snowflakes and carolers that reminded us our favorite holiday was on the horizon. And as the sun blinked its goodbye, and we grew hungry again, we stepped into a restaurant where time slowed almost to a standstill.

By the time we left the restaurant the earth had twisted us 2000 miles further from the sun, and its light was merely a fading memory. In the dark we wandered to a bench and read to pass the time until our train would take us homeward once more. We opened Traveling Mercies and random chapter by random chapter learned about the beauty of our imperfections and a woman’s struggle to live with God.

We moved to the platform where we first stepped into the city and continued to read. A freight train thundered by, and we huddled together to escape the reach of its grasping, windy fingers. Eventually, the headlights of a more amiable machine bent around the corner to us, and we climbed aboard. And with the sleepy mission town falling rapidly into our past, we gracefully slid over greased rails all the way home, basking in the quiet contentedness.