Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

I have just returned from a wonderful week at Charlotte and Jack’s cottage. I am not at all hopeful about re-entry into the workplace, but am thrilled that vacation was fun, relaxing and edifying. Allow me to share.

Things I learned at the cottage:

Coffee tastes better on the porch in a hammock swing. Even better when the other half of the hammock swing is occupied by your adorable boyfriend who looks very handsome when he’s just woken up. And has no shirt on. (Sorry, if this offended your sensibilities in any way, Mrs. Miller.)

Darkness is a relative term. When I walk around my house at home and turn off the lights to go to bed I would say that it is dark. In a mountainside hamlet with no street lights and a lovely lush canopy of 200 year old trees, “dark” means “black as ink.”

It is a good idea to refrain from the Chardonnay until after the sheets have all been placed on the top bunks.

Vacation is way better when your boyfriend is a lot of fun and has a sense of humor and you can stand the sight of him for days in a row, as opposed to a pathetic tired out drag with a jealousy problem who appears to age exponentially faster than everyone around you.

Daddy Long Legs spiders are not dangerous to humans but a 12 year old girl with a bug phobia can not be convinced of that.

The same Daddy Long Legs spider can not occupy a canoe, however large and spacious, with that same 12 year old girl. For any length of time. One of them will have to go. The girl will go more willingly. Even in the middle of the lake.

Speaking of lakes, the term “man-made lake” does not mean that things that are not man-made don’t live it it. And those things are not necessarily shy.

Some people can make anything fun.

A regular old hot dog is gourmet quality when it is cooked on a grill and followed by a warm slice of homemade apple pie with extra cinnamon and a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

A 1000 piece, Rock-N- Roll themed puzzle can turn into an obsession. And Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, and Jim Morrison’s hair can be hard to tell apart from one another.

When you are at an amusement park, they can charge you $11 for a hamburger and you will not hesitate to buy 5 of them.

There are people everywhere whose parents never taught them manners.

I will happily ride an amusement ride that goes 80 miles an hour, upside down and in reverse, and smile and laugh and want to do it again, but will put my hands over my face and say Hail Mary’s when my boyfriend backs into a parking space.

Some people can clog any toilet.

All the nooks and crannie’s of someone else’s rustic garage/crawl space can be fascinating to an indoor cat who has managed to escape.

Even with endless peace and quiet and ability to concentrate, I still can’t think of a dignified word for “boyfriend” when he’s not 20 anymore.

Geography matters. Being an hour away from home can feel like another galaxy when you don’t have to answer your phone, open your email or pay your utility bills.

It is hard to lose a friend, worse when she’s young and passes so suddenly. It is an easier thing to heal from when you have nothing to regret. I intend to live the remainder of my life leaving no regrets. So far, it is liberating.

If my theory is true about things absorbing the essence of the people who touch them, then we’ve just left our fingerprints on Charlotte and Jack’s cottage and smudged it with joy and laughter and love and family memories.

Vacation does not happen often enough.

And thus ends my What I Did on My Summer Vacation essay.