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.