Make Your Sabbatical Ode Worthy (You do Know What an Ode is, Don’t You?)

Maybe you never thought of writing an ode to your sabbatical experience. This kind of lyric poem often praises people, the arts, natural scenes, or abstract concepts (or most any common thing, as you will discover).

Having just read 25 odes – one a night for the last month – I propose that instead of telling your sabbatical story in front of your peers (common practice in outstanding corporate sabbatical programs), you should recite, “Ode to My Sabbatical.”

How do you like the idea so far?

Here’s the background story that prompts my thinking:

The Mother’s Day gift from my daughter was a small book I have kept on my bedside table.

“Odes to Common Things” by Pablo Neruda has enchanted me each evening before I flip off the light and call it a day.  The book is lovely – illustrated pencil drawings and bilingual - Spanish on the left side and English on the right. Elizabeth and I visited Neruda’s home in Chile and I introduced her to some of his books, but didn’t know about this one.

ode n.1. A lyric poem of some length, usually of a serious or meditative nature and having an elevated style and formal stanzaic structure.

Neruda’s common things are so familiar, you have to appreciate his efforts. How much praise or meditation can you do on a chair, bar of soap, pair of socks, a spoon and a dictionary? And there’s more – the apple, the tomato, the onion and French fries.

Neruda’s odes will have you looking at everyday things differently and, for certain, you’ll appreciate his approach. After lavishing on and on about the apple – “you are always fresh, like nothing and nobody”- he elevates the apple by taking jabs at some of my favorite fruits.

From “Ode to the Apple” – third stanza:

Compared to you

The fruits of the earth

are so awkward:

bunchy grapes,

muted

mangos,

bony plums, and submerged

figs.

Having 3, 4, 5 or 12  weeks away from a career is an incredible experience.  But the value of the sabbatical - what you do and where you go – should first resonate with you. Simple pleasures may be your choice (a month at your North Carolina cabin versus over-the-top travel to four destinations).

Neruda’s idea of praise and elevation of simple things inspires all of us to contemplate how we might fill a month of days looking at things differently.

Start with that dental floss that’s part of your everyday life. Your ode on that is due tomorrow.