Vacation Time

One of the great tests of romantic compatibility is how you travel together. Not in the first months or even the first year. There is too much "pleasing" going on then and so compromise comes easily. The real marker is in later years. Tommmorow we leave for France and our one big suitcase is on the living room floor. I have been adding to it all week and revising my packing list almost daily. Yes--a list. Actually lists. I have a general list and then sub lists for toiletries, exercise gear, and work related materials: iPad, file system for receipts, tablets and pens and my beloved Sharpies in at least ten colors, and then the cords for all the hardware.

One trip without all the right cords sealed that list into permanence.

John has it all in his head, and over time, tho I have nagged him to try my list system, I have come to see that his system works--for him.

Of course he's a guy so it's two pants, two shoes, six socks, six shirts and six undies and a toothbrush. Alas, I have many small toiletries bags--all clear zip locks, a minimum of lingerie (I bring detergent packets) and for this trip a record breaking two pair of shoes. (I shopped a long time to find shoes that work for both walking and for dress up.)

But those are differences we accommodate. In the bigger arena of travel compatibility we are --much to our surprise--like peas in a pod: We don't rush, we don't like to socialize with strangers; what we bring to read matters more than any shoes or clothes--our most fun discussions and greatest angst is about which books and how many and what can be Kindle versus an actual book. We don't bring cameras; we don't care about pictures--our experiences and memories are inside of us. (It was worth everything we've been thru just to be with a partner who gets that.) We don't care about wine but we do love to eat and we'll go out of our way to try a restaurant recommendation. But we'll go even further a field to find a bookstore that someone said was good. A really good trip means we found three or four new-to-us bookstores and especially new-to-us books.

France promises all of that. So I'll add a few more scarves at the last minute--Paris after all--and then zip it up and go.

Chicago

I’m home now from Chicago. A wonderful vacation in a new city with an old friend. I met my friend Brigid in Chicago and we had art, culture, shopping, and endless talking about our lives. Brigid and I know each other 30 years but we haven’t lived in the same city for the last 15. Earlier this year it seemed that the friendship would break from the distance and changes in our lives. We were young, single women together in Baltimore and shared passions for art and food and self-improvement.

In Chicago we went to museums, the symphony in the park and walked Michigan Avenue until our feet burned. Then we went to the Nordstrom shoe department for relief. And we talked nonstop about how our inner lives had improved and the parts that still resisted change. We swapped names of therapists, gurus and self help books.

It also felt good to go away alone—to have all that quiet time in travel---the good news of long waits in airports is that it gives me a huge amount of quiet and solitude and that really feeds my writer/creator self. I was delighted to find that Chicago’s Midway Airport has a Chapel and Spiritual Center in the airport. I went there to pray and meditate and be still.

Christmas Vacation

People plan. God Laughs.

Our three day trip to in Florida turned into eight. John’s Mom has no TV or internet so we blithely arrived at the Palm Beach airport to fly home on December 27th and like many were turned away. After hours and hours of airport life and long lines and my almost visceral refusal to believe that even with the storm we could not leave for five days—I finally surrendered and accepted what it was.

I began a gratitude list in the airport:

1. I had 18 hour mascara

2. I love to read magazines and the airport was full of mags I’d never read.

3. My husband was not screaming at me—a man behind us kept screaming at his wife.

4. We were not blind—a couple near us were both blind. (And they were negotiating all this hassle and being decent.)

5. I was not traveling with an infant—several families had teeny new babies.

6. I remembered to pray. (It took some work to get my thoughts to behave but I did pray)

7. We were both ok—really ok. We had family nearby so eventually we gave up and went back to John’s Mom and ate extraordinary food for five days and

8. This unexpected and unplanned week gave me a chance to get to know my new mother-in-law in ways I never could as a holiday houseguest.

Because we had planned our Christmas time with each other for December 27th—we had our own celebration on January 1st.

My favorite gift to John was a hard to find recording of Jeremy Denk playing Ives.

My favorite gift from John was the “Clapper”—the gadget that turns lights on and off with a clap of hands. Really. Now we can turn lights on and off in bed. All kinds of possibilities there.

Le Marriage

We are married. A small wedding. Our families and the close friends who have been our support for several years. Laughter, tears, cancer as a wedding guest—everyone recognized cancer as one of the attendants. We wrote vows that included being faithful—yes, I know—and that included “in sickness and in health”—knowing what that really means. We had great food, a lot of poetry, books, statues of Mary, our dear stuffed Babar and blue ribbons everywhere.

Then we flew to Paris and walked and ate and walked and ate and made love with windows wide open in the City of Lights.

San Antonio Dancing

We are back from a great vacation in San Antonio. It was a bit of everything: writing, speaking, learning, listening and play time. Part of the trip was a big conference and the best night included hours of dancing. Everything is big in Texas and that includes parties. In one hotel we went to three different ballrooms and danced in each one: Rock & Roll, Big Band and Texas Swing. We danced. No surprise that John is a good dancer even as he demurs—he’s an athlete and a musician so we danced to everything. Yeah, sometimes we had to make up our own moves but after a taste of Texas Swing I am determined to learn more.

The real treat of dancing that way though—and I’m guessing that swing dancers know this—is that the movement doesn’t stop when the music does. So even after stumbling-literally—to bed at midnight we kept reaching for each other all night and the dance continued.

Home Again, Home Again

I’m home from Orlando. A week of conferences, teaching, sunshine and a hotel room all to myself. One million people visit Orlando every year. That’s what the taxi driver told me on my way to the airport yesterday. They come for Disney and the other attractions. But my vacation this week was totally inside the Florida Hotel and Conference Center. It was Goldilocks’ perfection: not too big, not too small, with a nice restaurant on premises and a great swimming pool. If you love to swim you’ll get this: most hotel pools are too short for real laps, you have to begin your turn after a few strokes but this hotel had a pool that was looooong so great, luxurious long laps with a real deep end so I could play mermaid and practice dives.

I loved having a week away. It was mostly work; I was teaching and speaking to a national caregivers group and I loved the people. But each day after the last session I was so happy to decline dinner invitations and have a swim and then dinner alone in the lobby and then go to my room to watch junk TV and read my book.

Home last night to John grinning at me from the airport gate. Then showing off my new tan--real and faux—for him and having a proper and wicked welcome home on the dining room floor.