On a sunny day outside a winery in Sonoma, my friends and I were swishing Tempranillo in our glasses and engaging in a conversation with a posh married couple sitting near us. They were telling us about how they were traveling around the world, only stopping in wine country to attend a wedding. Curious about their lifestyle, I asked the woman what she did for a living.

“I’m on sabbatical.”

This confused and mesmerized me. I wondered if she was a professor, the only profession I knew of that had sabbaticals. Later, I wondered if this was a way of saying she wasn’t working.