Why Sabbatical?

Why Sabbatical?

Well really, the question is, why not?  What’s not to lose about a year off from your job, at least half-paid, with encouragement to relocate wherever your professional contacts allow, to think about what really interests you, to see new sights, to share this with your family, and to return, refreshed, to your old job?

My husband and I nearly didn’t take advantage of the sabbatical opportunity.  Twenty-two years ago, when he was first eligible for a sabbatical from the Distinguished Technical University where he had earned tenure, my husband almost chose to spend the year at an American National Lab, learning to use a piece of their equipment.  Luckily, the chairman of his his department convinced him that the great thing about sabbaticals is that you can live—and work—someplace very different, and that this is fun, enriching, unique—and one of the best perks in a job which otherwise features extreme high-pressure and very long hours, and is not well-compensated when you consider the long years of study required to obtain that job.

Ages 37, 36, 9 and 5, we spent that year living in a university-owned apartment in Cambridge, England.  We bought a car, and drove from Land’s End nearly to John O’Groats; all over France, and dipping into Italy and Spain; and through Germany to Denmark, to fulfill the 9-year-old’s dream of visiting Legoland.  Every stop in that year was a revelation to us all.  We cherish memories of bicycling together through the gentle English countryside, picking brambleberries, stopping at country pubs.  We spent holidays in Paris, in the south of France by the Mediterranean, and in Copenhagen.  We discovered English beer, French wine, and bread from bakeries.

There were downsides, too, so we were glad to return to the US and to functioning answering machines, plentiful television channels, and cheap junk from China.

When the next sabbatical opportunity came as it does, every seven years, my husband arranged for us all to give Germany a try.   Without a lot of preparation, including learning the language, we found ourselves, ages 44, 43, 16, 12 and 6, living in Stuttgart, coping with new customs and new words for everything.  Again, we bought a car, and began driving all over Germany, to Sweden, and eventually made a circuit to Prague, Budapest, Bratislava (so briefly only I have a memory of it) and Vienna.  We spent Christmas vacation taking the overnight sleeper train to Rome, and New Year’s Day in Pompeii.

Not only did we see all those sights, and more, but two of us became fluent in German (the oldest and the youngest), and we all came to love the German way of life: a hard-earned and deep respect for the individual and the environment; hard work, and just as concentrated relaxation; wonderful bread, beer, and pork.  We loved the terrific public transit system, which always ran on time, the kindliness of people when they saw you struggling with their difficult language, the charming old cities and towns.  In later years, our kids found their way back to Germany for study and for pleasure. We all feel that Germany is our second homeland.

No one warned us about another benefit we would take away from our sabbaticals, and so it was an enormous pleasure to discover it ourselves.  The family that goes on sabbatical together,  grows very close together.  Whatever difficulties you face, you face together.  Whatever you learn, you all learn.  Whatever you see, you remember together.  No one else, not even other sabbatical families, have exactly the experience you have shared.

There’s just one downside:  you become addicted to international travel.  Naturally, academic families cannot easily afford to take off for the Grand Tour of Europe every summer.  In fact, our international travels, except for my Dear Husband’s in the line of work, are almost entirely confined to our sabbatical years.

Thus, this year, when our children are all either too grown (and married, working, and/or tackling graduate school) or are too busy steaming their way through college to come along, they are massively envious of this sabbatical year:  it’s just me and my Dear Husband, back in Germany again.  We’ve been busy parents for over 30 of our 32 years of marriage, so the empty nest is is a very new experience for us.  I have to occupy myself with something besides helping the kids. 

To take my mind off how much I miss them, my pets, my home, and my friends, I decided to blog.  I want to share with all of them (well, the pets won’t care) what I see, what I taste and learn to cook, wherever I go, and what it makes me think.  I hope they won’t be too envious of me, because this is really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity:  a sabbatical year and a second honeymoon, all in one.  I mean to make the most of it.

Just an addendum: at the end of our sabbatical year, my Dear Husband is obligated through an arrangement at his Distinguished Technical University to spend six months living and working in Singapore, where we spent six months living in 2001.  What a contrast this will be with Europe!  Surely, by the time we return to Massachusetts, we will be rid of this travel bug we’ve caught!  And perhaps we will be happy to stay at home until the next sabbatical opportunity rolls around.

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