A Good Year

I was thrilled the other day to see that A Good Year was on HBO last week, more thrilled that I actually was able to sit and watch the entire movie from start to finish, but that is another blog that involves cable, and on demand, way too complicated to get into. A Good Year is based on Hotel Pastis by Peter Mayle, one of my favorite books about dropping out of society. The character is forced to choose between his high powered advertising job and rehabbing a Provence hotel. In the movie, Russell Crowe's choice is the ad job or reviving a centuries old vineyard and estate. These are pretty good choices to drop out of society... There has been a lot of talk about dropping out, chucking it all for the lottery or the big inheritance lately and I realize that it is more than the money that enables these dreams to happen. Although, money does make things easier. Within that fantasy lies more than just the idea of escape, it represents something much deeper. As a drop out myself, I realized a nagging feeling of missing something, perhaps the thing I wanted to do most that went unrecognized. For Russell and his literary counterpart, balance and quality of life became the major issues, secondary to the money. For me, working in publishing for fourteen years made me want to write. The real question should be what would you do without the lottery winnings, without the inheritance. What would you never trade for an escape fantasty. In essence, what represents your good year? Perhaps the opposite is true, what would represent your bad year?