I woke up early this morning, packed two weeks worth of clothes and books in my suitcase, threw in also my running shoes and bikinis and left the city for two weeks of vacation. I was careful not to take my laptop with me, I buried it in my drawer in the church office. I have yet to figure out how to make my email account send automatic holiday replies to people who dare to write me. I'll figure it out alright.

I have decided to start my Eat Pray Love trip of this summer from Pärnu. Vacations here are now very different from the summers I enjoyed here when I came from Newbold and had two and a half months of unlimited freedom, when I could wander to the local library and decide on a whim to read the whole of The Lord of the Rings and then lie two weeks out in the sun in the backyard reading, occasionally popping by the kitchen to find out what mom was preparing for lunch. Life is different now. Time is much more limited. Joy doesn't just lie around the house but comes with more effort. There are more things to remember now, and more things to forget. But the moments of life are precious all the same.

I am trying to maintain a healthy balance between activity and inactivity during these weeks. We have become so busy in our lives we unknowingly take this busyness with us to our vacations too, cramming every day and every moment with something, a place, a trip, a family get-together. By the end of such a vacation one is so tired a second vacation is needed to sleep off all this holiday busyness. I try to avoid this. And yet, there is a list of people in my head I wish I could meet, and a list of places to go. First of all, as soon as I am done writing this, I need to go and check if the sea and the beach are still where I left them the last time I was here in Pärnu. Then I want to go and sit alone at my mom's grave in Türi without anyone bothering me for a long time. I need to go and light a candle in St John's church in Tartu, sit in the pew and thank the Almighty for the past three years and for what He's let me do in the church (it's a promise I made before the conference session but I was unable to find time for it). And if there's a cherry on the cake for me, I want to sit in the sauna at my cousin's summer house until I can't sit there no more and swim in their lake until I can't swim no more. Only then I think I am ready to return to Tallinn and to the never ceasing pile of obligations.

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The last two weeks have been as ordinary and extraordinary as any other fortnight. I could almost cram everything into one sentence: I've marked exams, I've written sermons, I've raked hay and peeled potatoes in our conference's new camp site, I've watched the guy I studied the Bible with last winter get baptised, I've accompanied K. on a shopping trip, I've watched football, I've read two great books, I've agreed to take on a museum/exhibition challenge proposed by Dr. A. N., I've seen a psychiatrist (who declared me sane and healthy), I've booked plane tickets to a preaching trip in Norway. Oh, and I think I managed to get my first theological article published. But one thing I wasn't able to do over these weeks though. I wasn't able do make up my mind about being in love or not being in love. It's a decision I'm quite relaxed about as a) I'm in no hurry and b) even if I make up my mind about it, no-one gives a damn.

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This morning on a bus I started reading my 15th book of this year - Annie Dillard's The Abundance. She makes magic with words.

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It's been too long since the last time I posted any music. Here's Jack Savoretti and his Catapult. Have you ever heard a song more beautiful than this?