On Being Sick

Roberta walked into my classroom on a Friday morning at 8:25am.

"Mary's sick," she said.  "She almost fainted.  The school called.  They might want to take her in an ambulance."

I didn't know what to say.  Daniel was teaching at St. Thomas' and hadn't picked up his phone when the school called him.  What to do.  I looked at the students giving a presentation on a Jhumpa Lahiri story.  This was the first one: I couldn't leave.

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I had a similar reaction twenty years ago when my family called me in California to tell me that my mom was in the ICU at Mass General because her spine collapsed, and they didn't know whether she'd be paralyzed.  "Go home," the women in the English department said.  "I can't," I told them.  "I have my classes."  These wiser women told me to go home; friends from the language department got me a plane ticket with their miles; I was gone by the next morning for over a week.  And when I saw my family in Boston, I thought, Why did I hesitate for even a minute?  I'm painting myself in a very poor light, I know.  This is the tricky part of growing up in a house where the more you work the more virtuous you are.  My dad had a plumbing business, so he worked and worked and worked.  When my brothers started working with him, they did the same thing.  I am conditioned to put work first and to think that working more is more virtuous than working less.  I've been trying to adjust this mindset for a while.  Embarrassing, absolutely.  But hard to break the habit.

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Roberta left to figure out what to do.  Yes, I kept teaching, and Roberta went to figure out what to do about my eleven-year-old who almost fainted.  I was thinking, I saw Mary this morning.  She ate breakfast with me.  She was fine.

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This fall the director came to my desk one day and said, "You know, if you ever need to stay with your kids because they're sick, just let me know.  Family comes first."

I replied, "Thanks.  But, really, I don't really deal with the kids when they're sick.  Daniel gets them and stays home with them."

It was true.  He works part-time at home and works two miles from their Waltham school.  I work thirty to forty minutes away, so when the school nurse has called me to say that Mary's uncomfortable because her shoes are too small, or Sebastian got a scratch in the playground, or Connor's lying down in her office, or Hannah has a fever, I say, "Okay, I'm pretty far away.  Did you call my husband?"

Once I'm home I kick in and am happy to sit with and cater to a sick child.  They love the attention and chance to eat saltines and sip soda and maybe even -- sometimes -- to watch tv.

My mom was never sick.  My dad was never sick.  We kids went to school unless we were throwing up or had the chicken pox.  In some ways, I think this approach served me well: I generally think that if I get up and get moving I will feel better, make it through the day, and eventually get over whatever is ailing me.  This has worked for the most part.  However, there have been occasions when a little feeling exhausted or off has resulted in more serious maladies, e.g. pneumonia (twice), strep in various parts of my body (not throat), the flu.  Some of these times I have missed work -- for the pneumonia, once no and once yes; for the strep, no; for the flu, no.

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When my dad and Jacqueline were visiting, Jacqueline said at one point, "It's irresponsible to go to to work when you're sick.  You spread germs and can make other people sick."

Jacqueline is a biologist.

I thought how I grew up with a different message: It's irresponsible to miss work.  And it's irresponsible to make a situation where someone else might have to do your work.

I don't disagree with Jacqueline.  I just don't know how to reconcile what has become my core being with what I know is practical and wise.

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The kids were writing notes about Lahiri's "A Temporary Matter" when the director came in.

"Come on.  We're going to get Mary," he said.

"But what about class?"  I said.

"Tell them what to do.  Let's go," he said.

I looked at my students.  They were adding to their lists on the whiteboard, completely engaged with the story, their observations, and each other.

I left.

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The director drove me in Ele's (another co-worker) car to Santa Maria dell Paradiso, and as I expressed my feeling bad for his taking time out of his morning ("I could have walked over and taken her home in a cab," I told him), he acted as if this  morning drive together was great timing: "I need to talk with you about one of your advisees anyway, so this is perfect," he said.

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Mary was sitting in the principal's office.  She looked pale, but she told me, "I'm fine.  I really am.  I felt like I was going to faint because we have to stand for a long time in chapel on Friday mornings, but I just needed some water.  I'm fine now.  I can stay here."

I told my director what Mary said.  And by now I realized that Mary seemed to be exhibiting signs of a condition that I've had off and on my whole life.  When I was younger and we went to a 7am mass for a holiday, I often felt woozy, as if I would faint.  I never did faint, likely because I got used to this phenomenon and sat down before I could fall.  I'd sit down, drink some water, rest a bit, and then be fine to go to Easter brunch after mass.  "You looked green," my parents would tell me.

Mary told me, "They made me lie down and put my feet up.  And they wanted to make sure that I had eaten some cookies for breakfast.  Really, I'm fine now.  They want me to go home, but I'm fine.  And it feels bogus going home because I'm okay.  And I have my first interragazione today, so I don't want to leave because that looks bogus."

I relayed to Pat again even though I was pretty sure that he wouldn't give in to Mary as I wanted to -- he'd been in Italy too long: he knew how things went when it came to illness or potential illness in Italian school.  I, on the other hand, totally understood where Mary was coming from.

"She's gotta go home.  They won't let her stay," he said.

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My next class started at 9am.

"Is Daniel home?" the director asked.

"No," I told him.  I told him that Mary could go to our apartment and I'd check in on her after my third class.

"Let's bring her to school," he said.  "I'll feel better about that.  She can lie on Dave's couch while you teach, and she'll be close enough for us to check on her."

I was back in time for my second class, Mary resting in Dave's office, Pat back at work as director.

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Within the hour, Mary felt back to herself, and two hours later she and I went to the apartment to get her settled.  We did some cleaning; I did some work; she got a headstart on her weekend homework.  She told me that she felt a bit guilty being home and having a free day, and I told her that she could just enjoy it, rest if she wanted.

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Now on Friday mornings I make Mary a cup of tea with milk and sugar before she heads out to school, convinced that this will help her endure standing for Luigi's longer prayers on Friday mornings.

I'm not sure the message I'm sending our kids about sickness and health and work.  I think I'm saying, Be kind.  Work hard.  Take care of yourself.  Take breaks -- walks, swims, movies, books.  Sometimes good enough is good enough.  Sleep matters more than most other things.  Chatting is the best.  Relaxing is necessary.  I love you a lot.

Last week I started listening to an On Being podcast, an interview of Richard Davidson ("a neuroscientist on love and learning").  One thing I remember is this or some version of this: your kids will not remember what you say; they will remember what you do.

I'm hoping Mary remembers that Pat and I came to pick her up and not that I didn't come immediately.

You know you've acclimated to life in Italy when...

• you follow Roberta's instructions to get the stay permit for the kids and her descriptions are not general, but entirely literal.  She says, "Go to the building I brought you to before, go in the building, then into the door on your right where there's a room.  Go into that room, and on the left you'll see a hole in the wall where you put your receipt.  Put your receipt through the hole, and then they'll bring you the stay permits."  You go step by step, pushing and crowding on a Thursday afternoon (because of course they're open for stay permit pickups on only Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3-5pm) with four kids.  When you walk into the room, you follow the herd of nuns toward the wall where there is a hole.  An actual hole cut into the white plaster wall.  Everyone is putting papers into this hole, so you push your own papers through the hole and hope that someone will actual pick them up on the other side.  The system works: you walk out an hour later with permits for all the kids.
• you're not surprised that you got three snow days in two weeks but didn't spy snow once within the center of Viterbo.  In fairness, I did see photos of snow from outside the city.
• Hannah's soccer coach tells you that Hannah -- age 7 -- still cannot play in soccer games because of the bureaucracy of stay permits, but she can play in one tournament next Sunday.
• you show up for your 9:30am haircut at 9:29am, and the salon is locked and dark, but you feel pretty sure that you got the right day and time.  After all, you just made the appointment the day before.  At 9:31am, the owner shows up with his dog with apologies, grace, charm.  And you tell him, "No problem.  It's good.  Va bene."
• at the hair salon the mini-massage of three minutes relaxes you completely -- in just three minutes.  You say to the woman who let you select which oil you wanted and who gave you the three minute massage, "Troppo rilassato," meaning that you are super relaxed now, but what you say translates to "Too relaxed," and she says, "Mai troppo rilassato, sempre tanto," which means never too relaxed, always very relaxed.  And you agree wholeheartedly.
• your hair cut, a simple bob, takes two hours instead of the usual three and a half (though the longer time was for cut and color), and you don't mind at all; in fact, while you were there, you forgot about whatever else you were going to do before the kids got out of school (maybe it was the three minute massage).
• you learn that a few of your Italian colleagues, your age and older, get their hair and nails done every single week, and you're not that surprised, but relieved that they don't pull off their well-styled hair and nails on their own every day.
• you walk into the iphone repair shop to get a new battery, and the guy there tells you that it will take him five minutes and cost thirty euro.  And you think, "This was so easy!" forgetting that really, this is your fourth attempt to get a new battery for your phone: first time you took the metro and then a tram into the environs of Rome to get to a shop an hour later where a man told you that he couldn't get a battery for your SE because that model is too old; second time you found an iphone store in the middle of Rome but you weren't sure you wanted to pay 70 euro for a new battery and you didn't want to wait an entire day; third time you went to this same Viterbo store, and there was a sign saying that they weren't doing repairs on Monday or Tuesday, but someone would be able to help you on Wednesday.  Fourth time is this Viterbo shop, repair guy there, battery miraculously replaced.  Life feels easy.

Tiramisu: Venetian dessert that translates to "pick-me-up"

Walking up the hill Thursday morning to Santa Maria dell' Paradiso, I hear someone call out loudly, "Signora!  Signora!"

We all turn around and see a man and his son, the man coming towards me and telling me, "You left your credit card yesterday!"

In truth, I don't remember whether he spoke English or Italian to me, but I recognized him from Emme Piu, the grocery store I frequent because it's a seven minute walk from our apartment (Lidl is preferable because it's less expensive, but better to go with a car because it's farther away, and despite Daniel's offer again yesterday to teach me on a Sunday afternoon, I just don't want to and I'm good with walking to Emme Piu and his doing the Lidl runs).

This man is often at the register when I go to Emme Piu, and he asks especially after the girls, since Mary and Hannah go to Emme to get baking ingredients together.  I left my credit card at the check-out.  He tells me to go to information to recover it; it's in a box there.

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Friday night I go to Emme.  My new friend isn't there, but I stumble my way through two other Emme employees to recover my credit card.

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Saturday I go back to Emme to buy ingredients to make tiramisu.  (No, I'm not the most efficient shopper.)  Walking down the aisles, I google tiramisu recipes and find one with high reviews from The New York Times.  I search ingredient by ingredient, getting stymied when I come to heavy cream.  I find the fridge with milk, but no cream.  As I'd done to find the ladyfingers and the coffee, I ask another customer for help.  She shows me the mascarpone cheese, which is also on my list.  I already have this, but I still need heavy cream.

She says, "Mascarpone e uova per tiramisu."

I insist that I need crema pesante.

She finds a clerk and asks him for assistance.

He repeats her response, "Mascarpone e uova."

After the third time, I get it: Italians don't put heavy cream in their tiramisu.  The American recipe for tiramisu calls for cream.  An Italian recipe wouldn't.

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I've made one pot of coffee in my life.  When I lived in Berkeley, I made a pot of coffee for my friend Susan and another friend who were coming over for dinner.  It was so bad that Susan dumped the pot and made a fresh one.

I put the package of coffee back on the shelf: we will buy our espresso at a cafe for this Italian dessert.

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At the check-out, the man that I met on the way to Santa Maria dell Paradiso is there.  We smile and laugh when I hand him my now recovered credit card.  He tells us that he lives near Santa Maria.  I don't ask him where his son (who was with him) goes to school even though I'm curious.  He's got an easy, quick smile; a kindness in his eyes; a light humor that makes me want to go through his line.  

Sebastian says to me later, "Is he the one that waited that day that you thought you had your credit card but you didn't, and then we had to keep taking things off the order because you didn't have enough money?  The one who didn't seem annoyed even though you were holding the line up?"

Yep, that's the one.

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Shaker Cafe is less than a block from our house.  Mary tells me that she's embarrassed to go ask for one cup of espresso, knowing that this will be a few espressos; Italians would never bring their measuring cup to a bar: they just make the coffee themselves.  She goes anyway, measuring cup in hand to asks for one cup of espresso.   When I arrive for moral support, there's half a cup of espresso in the measuring cup, the barista is working on another espresso, and Mary is standing at the bar calmly, not looking embarrassed at all.  Mary tells me, "She's already made two, and we're barely at half a cup."

I stand with Mary.  We laugh over our approach to tiramisu.  I order coffees for us while we wait.

Four espressos and now we've got one cup for our recipe.

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We find a new recipe that doesn't call for heavy cream.  Ladyfingers dipped in espresso.  Half-pound of mascarpone cheese measured out.  Three tablespoons of sugar ready to go.

Mary separates the egg whites and yolks.  Beats the egg whites into such stiff peaks that she can hold the glass bowl nearly upside down and the whites stay put.  She mixes the egg yolks with the sugar, adds the mascarpone, mixes in the egg whites.  When the mixture is too liquidy, we add more mascarpone and two more stiff egg whites.  (I'm not the most scientific baker.)

Layer of espresso-dipped ladyfingers, layer of mascarpone and eggs, ladyfingers, mascarpone and eggs, dusting of chocolate powder.

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Pick-me-up in every way.

Pilates and Nineteen Resolutions

In the first week of January, a friend told me this idea of making 19 (for 2019) small resolutions/to-do's in lieu of a one big New Year's resolution.  (I'd already made my 2019 resolution, but I was up for this one, too.)

On my list of 19 things, I have things like take a bubble bath, play a game once a week with the kids, read a book in Italian, learn to make tiramisu, get a Viterbo library card, go to meditation with Daniel some, etc.  So they're doable items that make me excited or pleased or relaxed.

This week SYA students are doing sei giorni, six days in Italian school (Italians go to school Monday through Saturday 8-1pm).  We have faculty meetings for three half-days.  Complete sanity.  I've got a few things to catch up on, e.g. get new iphone battery, go to dentist, schedule hair cut, but mostly I'm taking it easy.  I've gotten each person in the family a bath bomb for Valentine's Day, in hopes that I will actually make the time to take a bath.  (Showers seem so much more efficient.  But that's the point of my real New Year's resolution: take more breaks.  I cannot remember the last time I took a bath.)

Monday: no meetings and no excuses.  I looked at the Larus (gym) schedule to find the yoga and pilates classes for the day.  These are on my 19 Things list: do a yoga class and a pilates class in Italy.  They don't have to be in Italian, but it's fine if they are.  I just need to get myself to a class: figure out the when and the where (there are many exercise rooms at Larus and on many floors -- scary), show up early to give wiggle room, stay and do it.

The schedule for Monday has three columns, with classes in the different columns.  I noticed that pilates was in all three columns at different days, and finally, for the first time -- I've had the schedule since December -- I noticed the headings above each column: strong, olistic, cardio.  Olistic was definitely the way to go: it sounded the most mellow and least difficult.  My twice a week pilates routine at the Waltham Y ended in July, and even with daily yoga and the occasional ten minute pilates video on youtube, I can't do a proper pushup.

Pilates has always intimidated me.  Until last year I'd never tried it, though I envied people who did, imagining that pilates would strengthen my core and cure all my back pains.  A little over a year ago a friend from the Y told me, "You should try the pilates class tomorrow."  She went every week, twice a week (at least) to Sandra's pilates class.  She told me, "It works the whole body."  I used to go to this friend's yoga classes (she teaches at the Y, too), so I trust her.

Scared to go and scared not to go -- I don't like wondering what if or having regrets: I went.

From last January until I left for Italy at the end of July, pilates Thursday mornings and Saturday mornings.  A gift.

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At the front desk at Larus, I asked, "Dove pilates?"
"La sala verde or rosa," one of the women said.
I pointed vaguely -- I'm not even sure where I was pointing.  It was my way of saying, And where are those? 
"Down two floors," she said.  "A sinistra."

I couldn't turn around now.

Julia was a tiny, curvy, forty-something Italian woman dressed in all black.  She handed me a black circle with cushions for my hands, asked me my name, and when I said that I spoke English and a little Italian, she said, "Guarda," telling me just to watch.  This was exactly my plan, to go in the back row (there was no back row, however) and copy whoever was in front of me.  Actually, this is my plan in Sandra's classes at the Waltham Y, too.  I don't want to draw the attention of Sandra to me and all my little cheating techniques to do full sit-ups and pseudo half push-ups.

The music blared from a speaker in the ceiling corner to my left.  Que sara que sara in some modern version.  While I was doing my breathing, I thought, Oh, that's the future tense!  "Giro cambio," Julia said, and after the third time, I knew to change the direction of my leg circles.  I thought of our kids at school, likely getting by a good bit by watching the other kids (though Hannah reports that her teacher shows some annoyance with the Italians when Hannah understands her questions better than they do...go, Hannah). 

Aside: Connor has a friend over this afternoon.  Sitting in the kitchen, I listened to them build a fort and have pillow fights.  I said to Sebastian, "They're like a cartoon -- not that many words."  "Yeah, and boof, bam, whap," he said. 

Julia's class was a balance of Jeannie's breathing and calming and stretching yoga and Sandra's pilates strengthening that felt good and, at some points, kicked my butt.  To my left was a woman who seemed about my age (though I have myself perpetually ten to fifteen years younger than I am), and to my right maybe four women and one man in their sixties or seventies.

At the end of class I was outrageously proud of myself: I came to a pilates class in Italy!  I stayed the whole hour and did the whole thing!

As I write, I'm reminded of a friend who visited this fall andwent to a yoga class in Rome her second day here.  She showed no pride, just pleasure that she had gone to the class.

So why are these little accomplishments so meaningful to me?  The truth is that the first time I went to Sandra's pilates class at the Y a year ago I was also totally excited and proud of myself.  I felt like I was overcoming a fear of pilates, getting myself into a new situation, meeting new people, trying something new.

To some people, such steps are not worthy of mention: you go or you don't.  I'm not sure why they are such big deals to me.  But I don't mind that they are.  My fear and excitement and ultimate patting self on back make so many small things, things likely often overlooked, a big deal to me.  Sometimes this means going to a new bar and ordering a cappuccino or caffe by myself.  Sometimes it means going to the community lunch at church.  Sometimes it means finding and staying for a pilates class.

I want to continue to revel in the ordinary.

No matter where I am.

Ostia Antica

With Dad and Jacqueline on their way to Rome, I asked the kids if there was anything they wanted to do or see in Rome if we headed down for the weekend.  Connor said, "Ostia Antica.  I just read a book about it."

A friend here told me about the Roman Mystery series, and Connor has been gifted some now from his grandparents, his parents, his aunt and uncle.  He loves them, and I love his learning a bit about the Romans and Greeks.  The kids have asked for a long time whether they will have to take Latin.  I've said no.

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My mom made me take Latin in high school, at least for freshman year.  At the end of freshman year, having taken one year of Spanish and Latin concurrently, I had to choose one: I chose Latin because I never put Spanish on a Latin test, but I occasionally put Latin on a Spanish test.  If Latin was winning out in my brain and on the spaces on my tests, I thought it was the one to do.  I loved Latin -- how there were so many endings and how everything would eventually fit together to make the sentences work; how what Sister Louise was teaching us in English class freshman year (a la her penmanship filled photocopies of grammar rules) I could see in parallel constructions and gerunds and participles later on when we were reading Vergil and Cicero (I liked grammar even back then).  And I made friends in those Latin classes.  Katie Hayes (of 13 kids in her family) and Alisa Intravaia (of 6 or 7 kids in her family) and I watched out the window one late morning as Sister Ruth walked up Medford Street and we sat in the classroom waiting for her for Latin class.  Rule-followers, we reported to the office and stayed put in the classroom without her.  The next day she laughed about forgetting to come to class.

A couple years later we sat in scary Mr. Murray's (he wasn't actually scary, but the rumors spread about his yelling at a girl or making fun of kids; he was harsh and blunt and actually quite funny) basement English/Latin classroom, looking out the window at the parking lot in the spring, while he mocked the spring seniors who came back and hung out in the parking lot: "They can't wait to get out of here, and then they come back and hang out in the parking lot!"  He wasn't wrong, and he's still not wrong: I see the same thing at Thayer every year, but we see the parking lot from our second story Latin classroom in the distance as the seniors take over the parking lot that the juniors think they've inherited, but haven't quite yet.  In Mr. Murray's basement classroom, I learned about Laocoon, that Trojan priest who told the Trojans, "Don't take in the horse!  It will ruin us!  Beware Greeks bearing gifts."  Okay, that's not a literal translation, but that was his message.  Minerva was pretty peeved since she loved the Greeks and wanted to see the Trojans go down, so she sent two slithery, fiery snakes across the water, all the way up to Laocoon and his two sons, and had those serpents kill all three of them.  I'm not doing justice to the Latin here -- there's the use of "salt" for the sea; the "s" alliteration to hear the slimy, scary, hissing of the snakes; the image of fire in the eyes of these dracones.  The Trojans think, Oh, golly -- gods are peeved with Laocoon; we better take that horse in, and we all know the rest.

Mr. Murray.  The basement classroom of Arlington Catholic.  Laocoon passage two years in a row.  I love to share this stuff with my own kids, showing them the Laocoon statue at the Vatican (a photo of which is in Latin books) or showing them a video about Pompeii or talking myths.  And have I wanted them to take Latin?  Yes, in some way I have.  Because I think it's so good for them in so many ways.  And it's been rewarding for me on so many levels.

But now they're learning Italian.  Reading and speaking and listening.  And I've thought, Maybe another language would be better for them.  A language spoke somewhere in the world.  What I want for them the most is the confidence to speak another language, a confidence I lack at times.  I'm fine messing up when I'm by myself and just trying, but I get self-conscious.

But Ostia Antica...

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Connor wanted to go.  I was motivated to make it happen.  Three kids and I staying at a vrbo spot near Piazza Navona motivate to figure out the bus and the train.  If the six of us are together, Daniel takes on this role.  I felt a little nervous taking it on and super excited, too.  If I messed up, so what?  The kids and I would still have a good time, likely no matter how long it took us to get there.  Some standing in the rain, a bus ride through Rome, a train ride, a pack of Italian-style Starbursts to count as breakfast and everything else til we arrived around 11:30am -- perfect.  Daniel and Sebastian drove from Viterbo to meet us (having stayed in Viterbo Friday night for basketball practice and meditation) and we raced to get our tickets.

Ostia Antica was a port for the ancient Romans.  It's like a mini-Pompeii less well-preserved, entirely less crowded, much closer to Rome (Pompeii is about four hours from Rome; Ostia Antica about 45 minutes).  From the gate we walked in we encountered first the necropolis -- the ancient cemetery --and a sarcophagus or two.  As we walked the main road, the large stones reminded us of our bike ride along the Via Appia Antica months ago.  We listened to the audio tour about a basilica, climbed up steps to look down onto a mosaic floor of the ancient baths (pretty sure Mary walked right on them as she traversed the ruins with her climbing until we told her that actually, you really can't do that, climb over and under where those ropes are -- in Pompeii she would have realized much more quickly, but out here in Ostia Antica, there was only a handful of people around on this Saturday morning, and no one even noticed...even her parents noticed after the fact); heard the audio tour guide go over all the rooms of the baths -- apodyterium, caldarium, frigidarium, tepidarium, palaestra, laconicum.  I thought, I wish Latin 2H could see and hear this!

I've visited Ostia Antica at least once before, if not two or three times before -- it's a Classics program field trip.  I vaguely remember going and I mostly remember that we brought bagged lunches from the Centro (where we lived in college).  I remember my friends, especially Libby and Nicole.  And eating hard-cooked eggs and bananas that year, things I'd rejected before then.  I remember carrying around a clipboard for our maps and notes and listening to lectures.

But this time I remember most the theatre before lunch and a stroll after lunch.  On the way to the cafeteria (that had better food than the Rome restaurant from the night before), we stopped at the theatre.  The current family competition was jumping up the steps, legs together, all the way up.  Hannah was speedy speedy.  I was slow slow and still impressed with myself.  Daniel videoed.  All the kids tried.  We laughed, the kids trying again and again and timing themselves until stomachs won out and we headed to lunch.

After lunch Sebastian needed to head out for his basketball game in Rome.  Everyone was ready to go except for Connor.  He wanted to explore Ostia Antica some more.  So he and I stayed.  We walked slowly, no particular apartment or temple or structure in mind.  I poked in to some spots and pressed the number on the audio guide to listen.  We climbed some stairs and lay in the sun on an ancient second floor for some minutes.

I asked Connor what else he wanted to see.

He said, "I just want to walk around, look around.  I don't want to figure out the structures.  I just want to be here and look at it."

While it had been raining in Rome, it was blue sky with sun out here in Ostia.  We walked on a road that took us outside the city, closer to what looked like a dock.  We imagined that we were heading to the beach.  I told Connor the story that one of my students had just written, a fictional account of the emperor Claudius and his stint as an engineer in the Roman army.  By one major entrance we passed a group of students listening to a lecture/tour.  I tried to eavesdrop before Connor urged me along.  Back at the ticket spot, I turned in our audio guide (with no passport to hand over as security, I had had to leave 70 euro instead: I was not going to forget to turn that guide in) and headed to the train station.

No clipboard.

No lecture.

Some jumping.

Some mosaics.

Some walking.

More than enough.

Vacation for Real

Every marriage has its strengths and weaknesses.  Daniel and I do pretty well with taking walks, drinking tea, watching movies, uprooting our family for a year.  We have work to do on planning, executing, and enjoying trips together.  Where I would relax, he would go explore; when I would want to be up and out to explore, he wants to slow down and enjoy the moment.  Where he would spend more money on a hotel, I want air b and b; when I find a more expensive spot to stay, he wants a cheaper option.  The contradictions become even bigger deals when we've got four kids in tow.  Some vacations go well, e.g. Cinque Terra, Naples, Rome with our friends; others leave us needing some serious recovery time, e.g. Barbados three years ago, Rome with SYA, northern Italy trip.  This is not new for us, but still, we've not figured it out entirely.  We're both responsible, and we know it.  Okay, I don't really like that any of it could be my failings, but I know that I could communicate more clearly, push ahead more forcefully, insist on my approach instead of holding back because I don't know that my way is any better than another way and then complaining later that I don't like the ways things are turning out and blaming Daniel (this reminds me of how I always preferred singles rather than doubles in tennis: if I double fault or make another error in singles, I pay the price and lose points; if I make these errors in doubles, then I've let down my partner.  I don't want to be the one to screw up.).

So this push-pull planning, or sometimes lack of planning, looked like walking around festively decorated Florence after dinner but not entirely enjoying it because we weren't sure where we were sleeping that night; finding the booking.com spot, but having no success with the key pad, so sitting with four children until midnight in a cold stairwell hoping the owner might come (he didn't); walking the streets of Florence til 1am to find a hotel for the six of us; sleeping three to a bed and cringing at all the sounds I could hear above, below, and beside us.

The next morning I make a reservation at an air b and b that we had rejected before because it looked too purple and was in Mestre, a city that the AAA guidebook advised tourists not to stay in since it was "an industrial sprawl" outside Venice.  A reservation for two nights in a too purple apartment in industrial Mestre was looking really good to me after the Florence fiasco.

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After two days in Venice, Daniel says something like, "We didn't plan these days well.  We lost two days because we didn't have a plan."  I'm thinking, These were two great days of just hanging out in Venice and people-canal-boat-gondola-bridge-building-architecture watching.  Kids and I are delighted with the two Venice days.

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When we finally get to Ortisei, the ultimate destination for our northern Italy trip, we get the kids outfitted with skis, boots, helmets, goggles.  I comfort and reassure the kids, urging Daniel not to take them beyond where they are comfortable.  "It will be easier when you're not with us," he says.  Ouch.  And yet I know it's true: One parent in charge really can be easier, even if it is with four kids skiing.

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In Rome, I'm antsy antsy in the morning.  I leave with Hannah and Mary to get to the Vatican on time for the SYA appointment, thinking that Daniel knows that I have both girls with me, but he doesn't know I have Hannah so he looks for her, gets on the wrong bus, and shows up late to the Vatican with the boys.  I'm thinking, How embarrassing!  He's thinking, You might have given more lead time on times and places and told me you were taking Hannah with you.

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A few summers ago Daniel and I sat in our dining room discussing a summer trip of three to five days.  Martha's Vineyard or a lake in New Hampshire.  Camping or a cabin.  Which would we all enjoy most?  Which would give us a good family experience, some good outside time, even some ease?

Daniel talked through his preference, camping on Martha's Vineyard.  He sat in the rocking chair by the window, narrating to me a possible, even likely Martha's Vineyard scenario.  His description went something like this:

So we plan to take the 11am ferry, but really, we leave Waltham late, so we get to the Cape a few minutes after 11, missing the ferry by minutes, find parking, and then wait for the next ferry an hour later.  But everyone's hungry now because it's almost lunch time, so we go to grab food, and we're not sure where to go, and child 1 needs to pee, so some of us go grab food, and the others head to find a restroom, and we lose track of each other, but then we find each other back on the dock, and we've all got food, but now we've missed the next ferry.  So we wait for the next one.  Child 2 and child 4 start fighting, and we holler at them to get out of the way of other passengers, hoping that we're not annoying anyone too much.  As the ferry arrives, child 2 realizes that she left her favorite book in the car, and child 3 realizes he left his stuffed animal in the car, so we send Daniel back since he's the least likely to stress about missing the ferry.  The rest of us run onto the ferry and cheer him on as he steps over at the last possible moment.  Child 2 is getting a sunburn on the ferry but sneaks away quickly every time one of us goes to apply sunscreen.  Finally, we are on the island, and we can't find the bus stop to get to the campground, but child 3 is in tears now because her bag is much too heavy to carry.  So we all sit on the side of the road, and one parent (likely Daniel) heads off to find the campground, or rather, to find someone who can either sell him a map or tell him how to get to the campground.  By now child 2 is hungry again because he wasn't really hungry when we got lunch, and the walking made him thirsty, but it's a hot day so we all drank all the water as soon as we got off the ferry.  Now we adults are debating whether to walk with all our stuff, someone carrying child 3's heavy bag, or to find a store to buy some food and water for child 2, or to give up on camping, hop on the next bus and use all our vacation funds for the year to stay in a hotel instead.

I laughed so hard I couldn't speak. 

(And I knew that our children would be devastated to hear our laughing at this potential version of family vacation, to know that we were finding so much amusement in their very real travails of travel.  Truly, it was possibly the same amount of difficulty/ease for them/us to travel from NM to Rome as it would be for them/us to travel from Waltham to Martha's Vineyard....not counting the purging, cleaning, and packing, of course...but who am I to say when I traveled solo from Boston to Rome...)

Now should I do this same thing for the New Hampshire lake option? he asks.  Because really, you know this can happen any place we go.

The romantic, ideal family vacation dismantled before we even decided where to go.

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Surely there's time for us to get this vacation thing right.

We can laugh.