Photo by Carolyn Kraft

It began with a vision box.

Similar to a vision board, our box was decorated with images and words linked to and evocative of the place  my wife and I were determined to return to after three long years.  Our version of Disney World, our Mecca: Portland, Oregon’s very own Powell’s, City of Books! We chose a box to advertise our dream, by the way, as it also carried the books from our private collection that we were going to trade in. For credit. To buy more books from Powell’s to bring home of course.  But would we be able to afford the trip?

A few months after finishing the vision box, while returning from a trip home to Wisconsin, we were offered the opportunity to give up our seats in return for two round-trip tickets worth $950. All we needed to know was that the airline flew to Portland and we were all over it. A few months after that, we negotiated a great deal with the Mark Spencer Hotel, which is a mere two blocks  from our version of heaven: a bookstore three stories high covering an entire city block. The vision came true. We were on our way.

I’m only able to write this now, as we spent the last six days of December in a book-induced trance. Our trip itinerary was as follows: Wake up; eat breakfast (fast); spend day at Powell’s, browsing and reading; eat dinner? We were engaged in books, immersed in them; in short, we geeked out on them. For us it seemed like time did not exist. Most of my timeless wanderings were spent in the Blue Room (Literature) and the Gold Room (Genre Fiction). The great thing about Powell’s is that they shelve new and used books together, and most of their used books are in great condition. This allowed me to be a bit more adventurous, and I bought some titles by authors I’ve never read before, How the Dead Dream, by Lydia Millet, and Things That Fall From the Sky, by Kevin Brockmeier, and Peter Straub’s Ghost Story. I also wanted to explore more by writers whose body of work I’ve only scraped the surface of. Thus: The Houseguest, by Thomas Berger, The Double, by Jose Saramago, and War Dances, by Sherman Alexie.

The other advantage to taking a trip without a touring agenda or a need for sightseeing was that it forced me to slow down–really slow down–relax and take a break from the hustle and flow of normal life. This is not always easy for me to do. But I did it, and thanks to the great atmosphere at Powell’s Cafe and the Dragonfly Coffee House, I was also able to read two books I’d brought along on our vacation: Unstuck in Time: A Journey Through Kurt Vonnegut’s Life and Novels, by Gregory Sumner, and The Boy Who Followed Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith. Highly recommend both.

Okay, Bryan, enough gushing. Suffice to say this was a great way for me to end a year that I feel was one of my most challenging and rewarding. And now I’m refreshed and ready to get back at it in 2012.

Now how about you? How did you spend your holiday and New Year? Did you keep working through, or did you take a break and stop time for a little while?