Do you remember when I was waxing poetic about visiting Pennsylvania? When I wanted to see Philadelphia and drive out to the countryside, see some historic sites and sip tea at Styers Cafe? Well I just found out today that I’ll be in Philadelphia later this week and weekend!

So in a crazy rush to get everything done before my trip, I’m also trying to find great places to visit relatively close to Philadelphia. I am, of course, making a pilgrimage to the mothership, Anthropologie, and will be relying on Girls Guide to City Life, Philadelphia and a New York Times article 36 Hours in Philadelphia for some more information. Also, both Philadelphia and Pennsylvania have great tourism sites and (Pennsylvania has a great Twitter account that I’m eyeing, too).

But I’d love it if anyone has any ideas, shops to explore, sites to see, drives to take, cafes to lounge in, areas to avoid. And if you’re local, let me know!

Summers were always my favourite; when I was younger I’d work so hard during the fall and winter months to be able to take Summers off or work at my leisure. However, the past few summers have been anything but leisurely.

I decided I couldn’t just talk about a great lifestyle without actually living one. I couldn’t talk about feeling young and having fun without actually feeling young and having fun! So I did something uncanny: I took time off.

In fact, I took all of last week off. I know, I can’t even believe it. I had the perfect staycation. Daily trips to the beach, lounging with friends, sleeping in late, being in bed all day, more iced latte’s than I’d like to admit, trips with my dog, trips to local places I’d never been to. Sleep. More Sleep.

I love to work. I love to travel. Unfortunately, somewhere along the lines I forgot I like to also be lazy. I had started slowly with Sunday’s off (which meant no computer, no working, no going anywhere or to any event) but became brave during the Fourth of July Holiday weekend here in the States. It began with meeting my friend, Jessica, for cocktails at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills where we lingered (oh we lingered), followed by a beach party at her place (oh, we lingered some more), followed by a day at the Huntington Gardens (and I lingered there, do you see the pattern?). By the end of the weekend I couldn’t go back to reality and so, I took a week off. An entire week off.

I made a quick road trip to San Francisco and on the way home I stopped and visited friends who have a ranch in Santa Barbara and guess what - no cell phone service, no internet service just lemonade service. Brilliant. And once home I just wanted to be home and so I spent my time between my flat and my friends place in Malibu. Perfect.

Now this week comes a busy crazy week of work and travel but because of that time off, that much needed time away from all the noise, I am ready - and excited - about getting back into the work and travel mode.

I just need to remind myself to repeat this every once in awhile.

“On your phone, you see her tweet: “I don’t like the chicken I’m eating.” What? Why doesn’t she send it back? Suddenly, it hits you: She’s telling scores of random strangers around the world that she doesn’t like her meal, but can’t be bothered to tell you sitting at the same table?”

“We reply to someone we don’t know on Facebook, and we won’t even look at the cashier at the grocery because we’re too busy typing text messages on our phones,” Gordhamer says. “Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Zen poet, says the most valuable gift you can give someone is your attention. The danger with this new technology is you can become less available to your children, friends and partners in your real-life world.”

From The popularity of Twitter has some relationships in a twist

After hearing all the incredible feedback from my Negotiating Technology post, I thought of a another blog post I wrote in 2005 about taking the time to really hear someone in an age when it can often be hard to be fully present. Four years later, I think it’s still pretty relevant and thought I’d share it here:

Many years ago during a tramp in New Zealand, I learned the importance of really hearing someone. High in the mountains it was quiet except for one lone bird who called out loudly and continuously. Its call was the most tragic, saddest sound I had heard. I asked my friend why it kept making the noise that it did and my friend told me that it was waiting to be heard.

After a few minutes, another bird replied with one long loud sound which silenced the tragic sounding bird; it had been heard and didn’t need to call out anymore.

This past weekend, I was visiting with my four year old niece who is always terribly excited when I come around. We don’t see each other often and always have much to catch up on. For this reason, she repeats Auntie over and over again, vying for my attention.

When I saw her and she started with her Auntie, Auntie and desperately trying to get everything out to me while she could, I slowly knelled down beside her, put her little hands in mine, looked at her and calmly said, “I hear you. I will hear you until you have told me everything you need to say.”

With that, you could literally see her little body relax. There wasn’t the worry that I would only pay half attention or walk away. She could relax and slowly tell me everything that was important to her whether it be how we could cut and paste a card together or what she learned in school.

There are so many things as people that we have to pay attention to and with the internet and television we are used to scanning, flipping, and catching only bits. The art of listening, of hearing the other person fully, is slipping away. We tend to assume we already know what they’ll say, the answer to the question or that it’s not as important as what might come next. Hearing doesn’t seem to be important anymore.

I very seldom offer advice but what I always offer is to hear a person. Sometimes people don’t want a solution, they just want to be heard. Sometimes people don’t want things; they just want to be heard. Sometimes people don’t want to be advice, they just want to be heard.

Often I wonder if we really stopped to be fully in the moment of someone telling us their woes, their fears, or their excitements, how much that would really change things. Perhaps that sounds too easy but often the answers to the most complicated questions are the simplest words. Words such as, I hear you.

In most European countries, Denmark in particular, new mothers push their babies in prams something I can’t recall ever seeing in any US city I’ve been to. Because these prams are rather large and most shops are very small, mothers often leave their babies bundled up in the prams while they quickly pop into a store. Time and time again I saw prams with babies outside stores and no one ever seemed to think it strange or dangerous.

When I shared this with friends in the U.S., everyone sighed at the idea of living in such a society where one could do that. Each lamented how that would be impossible here. In fact, I heard a lot of parents say how they don’t even let their children play in the front yard for fear of strangers or something happening.

However, Salon’s recent article, Stop Worrying about your Children, suggest that the fear is in our minds:

“The crime rate today is equal to what it was back in 1970. In the ’70s and ’80s, crime was climbing. It peaked around 1993, and since then it’s been going down.

If you were a child in the ’70s or the ’80s and were allowed to go visit your friend down the block, or ride your bike to the library, or play in the park without your parents accompanying you, your children are no less safe than you were.

But it feels so completely different, and we’re told that it’s completely different, and frankly, when I tell people that it’s the same, nobody believes me. We’re living in really safe times, and it’s hard to believe.”

I live in a highly affluent area where people are 97% satisfied with the city and 98% satisfied with the city’s (almost non-existent) crime rate. It’s a very safe area that has a relatively large family population (in multi-million dollar homes) yet I can literally count on one hand the number of children I’ve seen (or heard) playing outside.

I’m not one of those people who believes the world is a more dangerous place but I think I owe this to several things: I don’t have a television, I listen to NPR, I’m an optimist. So not being inundated with daily doses of murders or glorified crimes that sell headlines and instill fear. Instead I can take in information from relatively calm sources and assess every situation as it is - not what it’s made out to be.

Are there dangerous areas? Of course! But as adults we have the ability to judge when it’s safe and when it’s not. Front yards, probably safe. Leaving a child in a pram outside, depends on where you are. I think what it also comes down to is knowing your community. Knowing the people around you.

In Denmark, for example, people don’t go to large lot stores to buy goods; they patronize the local flower shop, the butcher, the seamstress, the same pub. People get to know each other so there is a sense of responsibility to look out for one another. There’s a sense of trust. Stores are set up so that you can see your pram outside or you know how long it’s going to take you to run in and out.

One of the places I find really interesting to see this sort of thing is at Disneyland. There are thousands of strollers in the park and, when you go on a ride, you must leave it. You see all sorts of things being left on the strollers (souvenirs, clothing, bags, toys, food) yet the crime rate at Disneyland is very, very low. There’s a certain sense of trust (we’re in the happiest place on earth!), a certain sense of relaxation (we’re on vacation!) and a sense of community (we’re all here to have a good time!). What if Main Street in Disneyland wasn’t just in Disneyland? What if it existed in our towns and cities too?

Would you be more willing to leave a pram, a stroller, your bike, your dog out? Would you do it now?

For the last year, since the writers strike in LA, things have been quiet. And by quiet I mean there’s been fewer parties both professional and private. There’s been less get togethers for coffee and outings. And when the recession really hit us last fall, things almost seemed to stop. It was as if most people equated fun with either business or spending money. The free or cheap kind just didn’t seem an option. This made being in LA less fun and had me feeling a little older.

So I decided to shake things up; bike ride in pig tails more, play yahtzee with friends, spend the day at the beach, read a book on the couch every night, bake, laugh, sit in cafe’s and be nothing but in a good mood to every one I met. It had me feeling 18 all over.

Apparently, that feeling caught on because a friend noticed the fun and wanted it, badly. Her life had become full of work, bill paying, worrying, social climbing, decorating, managing and less about fun. She realised something had to change when she got caught unexpectedly in sprinklers that went off at a local park which made her furious at first, only to make her burst into laughter at the situation. A situation that, 15 years ago, she would have sought out for fun. She realised she hadn’t laughed like that or felt so young in ages. She couldn’t wait for an unexpected sprinkler system to go off to find the fun, she had to create it.

So what did she decide to do? Set up her house in Palm Springs as if it were the 90’s - the music, food, games, 90210 playing on TV and telling everyone to dress the part (I’ve got my baggy logo sweatshirt, shorts & hair clip ready!) and act their 90’s age. It was going to be a weekend of no-responsibility, of freedom, of fun.

I couldn’t pack my bags fast enough.

I turned 18 in 1992 and life was pretty amazing. I didn’t have millions, I didn’t own any furniture, I didn’t have a career or ambition or pets. Without all those worries, without all those responsibilities, without all the have to’s (created or real) I was able to create so much fun and so many stories to tell. And although things have changed now (I have furniture, a career, pets, responsibilities and things to manage) what hasn’t changed is the need to find the fun. In fact, it’s probably more important now. Creating stories to tell shouldn’t just happen in your 20’s - it should be an ongoing thing whether you’re 18, 35 or 65.

So I’m headed for a road trip with a girlfriend for a holiday break, just like in the video above when I took a summer vacation in 1991 with my girlfriend (I was 17!). Of course it won’t be the same and I don’t expect it too. I just expect to have a really good time. And I hope this weekend you find the fun, too. Whether it’s on the road, in your own backyard or just over a glass of wine or cup of coffee.