I don’t exactly recall the circumstances or the date, but I do recall the feeling. I was going to spend a day away from my life as a teacher, wife, and mother, and it struck me: no one would know who I was or who I had been. On this day, I could reinvent myself entirely. A new name, maybe something trendy or perhaps something traditional and old-fashioned? A new profession, as let’s say a ghost writer or a former intelligence agent? A new residence, perhaps Canada, or–in the likely scenario that my Midwestern drawl may give me away–North Dakota or Kansas? Why not? Anonymity was an unexpected gift, if only I dared unwrap it.

A few weeks ago, my granddaughter, Gracyn, was chosen as a class representative to attend an area young writer’s conference. She had submitted her original story and waited for weeks in hopes that she would have the opportunity to board a school bus which would take her from her local school to the university campus where the conference would be held. When her teacher gave her the good news that she would attend, she could hardly contain her joy. A day away from school! A day away from her family and friends, from her community! As frightening as the prospect may be for a fourth-grader, it was also exhilarating. I could see the possibilities flash across her eyes: a day away as a real writer!

In her novel, Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold writes:

She liked to imagine that when she passed, the world looked after her, but she also knew how anonymous she was. Except when she was at work, no one knew where she was at any time of day and no one waited for her. It was immaculate anonymity.

A day away may afford this bliss, this immaculate anonymity for those whose schedules demand that others know where they are at any time of the day, those who have others waiting for them, and those who, like poet T. S Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock, measure out their lives with coffee spoons. Just a single day during which to walk with purpose. Or without purpose. To try on a gregarious new persona–or a solitary, contemplative one. To know that you will return to your life, that you must return to your life, but that for that day, you are the potter before the shapeless lump of clay that can become any magnificent life you’d like it to be. Pretty heady stuff, indeed!

Even for those who find reinventions of this sort foolish and dangerous, a day away may still be an unexpected gift. As a young mother, I remember too many days (and nights) during which I drooled over the possibility of a day away from crushed Cheerios in the folds of my clothing, the persistent and pervasive smell of Lysol mingling with baby formula, and countless squabbles over who got the green Tupperware sippy cup for lunch. And then when I was away, I remember watching other mothers and children in shopping malls or in restaurants and, to my dismay, tearing up. It was then that I began to count the hours until I could return and gather their sticky selves into my arms. Days away were poignant and acute reminders that I cherished the life I had, mismatched Tupperware and all.

When I discovered Audible books, I really believed that I had died and gone to literary heaven! Before my day away would begin–that is, before I would literally arrive and open my car door to do whatever it was I was going to do–I could live vicariously through characters and places that took me away from my life in southeast Iowa. Without even leaving my car, I took on the lives of WWII resistance fighters in the French countryside and lighthouse keepers who lived in isolation for months. I could get away within the compact frame of my Hyundai Santa Fe. Audible presents me with fictional days (or years) away before the real days away begin. A twofer! What could be better than that?

In his poem, “Birches,” Robert Frost writes of a boy who likes to climb birch trees and ride them Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That, according to Frost, would be good both going and coming back. In the Sanctuary of a Day Away, it is good both going and coming back. A day of respite, reinvention, rejuvenation and then a return to the ordinary but extraordinary wonders of home.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about my next day away. I might be a motivational speaker from Maine. Well, I will have grown up and lived most of my life in the Midwest, but I will have moved to Maine to further my career. My name will be Philomena (this is a name that will turn some heads!) I’ll be assuredly optimistic and artfully witty as I espouse my motivational advice. Free, of course. And then I’ll return to my life as a retiree who generally goes by the name of Grandma. That will be good both going and coming back.