Six weeks on my own have taken their toll. For the first time in years, I board an airplane without the accompanying belief that I am going to die on it.
In fact, I’m a bit blasé boarding - I still say my three prayers (two in Polish, one in English) I still step onto the plane right foot first - but in general I’m exhausted and feel only relief when the doors finally close. It’s ironic, of course, my newfound air travel nonchalance - as this isn’t going to be just some ordinary flight; this is going to be fourteen hours across the vast and deep and dark Pacific, just the kids and me. If there was a such a thing as an anti-bucket list, just days ago, getting on this particular Boeing 777 would have been at the very top. But there I was - row A, seat 6, listening to the Ashanti/Ja Rule version of Helpless from the hit Broadway musical Hamilton, on repeat - and not shaking with fear that as soon as we took off, or somewhere over that bottomless body of water, or perhaps right at landing, our plane would suddenly and mysteriously plummet to its doom. I feel tired, yes, but not anxious. Not the kind of anxious I’m used to anyway, the fucking hell this is the end terror that grips me whenever the captain turns on the seatbelt sign. I’m ok when we lift off the ground. I’m ok when we reach cruising altitude. I’m ok when I stand up, lean over my seat and check on my boys - each nestled in a futuristic purple pod, one directly behind and in front of me - to see they are totes living the dream with their big screen TVs and their cubby holes galore and their ambient lighting. I sit back down and look out the window into darkness. We are going to be fine. We are going to Australia.
Here are the things I think of when I think of Australia before I get to Australia. Koala bears, that opera house, Steve Irwin, ‘the outback’, manly men, surfing, sharks, dingoes eating babies, Aboriginals, and Muriel’s Wedding. The phrase “Island of Misfits” comes to mind too, but where and how, who knows. Most importantly, I think of how Australia is not a real place, but a faraway land written about in travel articles, and occasionally filmed.
During the flight I listen to audiobooks - soothing and heart-wrenching Hunger and absurdly ridiculous I, Partridge - and watch six episodes of Big Little Lies. I doze, down a single glass of pinot noir, and guiltily resign myself to the perks of business class. Even during the short bouts of turbulence, I remain at ease. The only time my body clenches is halfway into our journey, when the plane shudders and bounces for what seems like a really long time, but the nice flight attendant (my inside voice still insists on stewardess) informs me that’s what always happens when ‘we cross the equator’ and as insane as it sounds, I am satisfied with the answer. I find myself basking. Which is odd, and sort of amazing. At some point, I write out a birthday card for my husband, and among the scribblings is one important, surprisingly life-affirming sentence.
“I don’t believe our story will end in tragedy.”
And it doesn’t. We land thirteen hours and twenty-nine minutes later and disembark safely and soundly, in awe at how, just like that, we have found ourselves on the literal other side of the world. I am glad we didn’t check any luggage, and that even for a two-week trip across the hemisphere, I was able to cram everything we might need into three small carry-ons. I film the boys running toward their father, him swooping them up in his arms, them delirious and overjoyed. My happiness is quiet, like waking up from a dream that didn’t quite make sense.
First things. I’m sitting on a balcony situated on the 19th floor of a tall, white skyscraper. Directly in front of me; the neon marquee of the Kurrawa Surf Club, an ocean, and a blinding sun rise. But the word ‘ocean’ seems lacking, a joke. I need a new word now, something longer, something that can hold the enormity of what it is I’m staring at. Univocean. Or maybe just a single letter. This Pacific is a planet, a floating galaxy; there is no end to its width and depth and length. Surreal is a good word, for everything I am feeling right now. I pull my sweater closer to my skin. It’s chilly, but then again it’s winter down here and in the coming days I will notice, that similar to Angelenos, Australians are quick to don scarves and boots whenever the temperature dips below sixty.
Two days in, and my jet lag has let up a bit; I stir at six am, instead of three. Patrick is sleeping; in an hour he will get up, shower and head to set. The children are on their twin beds, and having read for the requisite twenty minutes, they’re playing a game of dueling kingdoms and luck-of-the-draw survival on their fully charged iPads. I type and stare out intermittently at the rolling waves, which crash and burn, and crest over and over again. The sound of this Sisyphus-like motion is satisfying and calming. To my right I spy the spirals of equally high-reaching buildings - all of them white and whimsical, undulating shapes and strange spirals - buildings with intricate and thoughtful facades that do not mar the horizon, but somehow add to its majesty.
I feel at home in this strange place. It’s a good feeling; a reminder of how thrilling and welcoming the world can still be.
The truth is, anywhere in the world would probably have seemed like a pleasant distraction from the goings-on back in the States. Anywhere in the world would have seemed more beautiful, I’m sure. (For starters, I prefer old buildings and ruins; the sight of a centuries old cathedral or an ancient hut instantly makes me feel better about life in general.) What’s happening back home is ugly. I’m no dummy, however. No matter where one goes, there are moments in history that have been forgotten about, swept under the rug, moments I know nothing about. I’m sure Australia has its fair share of ugly. The Aboriginals weren’t exactly given the red carpet treatment here. They weren’t even regarded as part of the population - as human beings to be counted and recognized - until 1967. (I learn this later on in our trip, thanks to an article in a glossy magazine given out gratis in the Virgin Australia business class lounge, the irony.) I am sure there is ugliness here too, beyond the immaculate sunsets and breathtaking waters, and friendly g’day mate faces. I just don’t feel like looking for it. Not yet, anyway.
The ugliness back home has worn me out. I hate it. I hate when stupidity is lauded as a right, when people wave their idiot flags proudly. It’s disheartening, ridiculous and maddening - and come late June, I am done. A reprieve, or else I will crack. I am done tweeting about it. I am done calling my senators. I am done marching, protesting, wearing pink hats. I am tired of news coverage, tired of Trump, tired of pointing out the hypocrisy. I want to slip away. I want to pretend that ugly, ignorant people will once again have the courtesy to spew their hate behind closed doors, over fences, or at cotillions or whatever, like in the good old days. I want to disengage. I want to leave New Jersey. I want to forget about America. There. I said it.
Which is why when my husband tells me he probably won’t make it home before August, and that we’ll have to fly to him, I don’t panic. I just nod my head and start a list of essentials we’ll need to pack. Australia has a leg up, right from the start but I don’t know yet that I will come to love it so much in so little time.
New things. It seems easier to write about the nuts and bolts of our initial adventuring, without having to search for the appropriate words to describe anything beyond what it feels like to hold a koala bear for a minute. It feels weird.
His name is Cowen and we hold him on Friday afternoon, a few hours after landing. (Thursday was lost as we flew over the equator. There is no trace of Thursday. ) The koala is docile but his claws are sharp, and it freaks me out, but I take him, upon my sons’ joint urging. An arm under it’s rear, the other one wrapped around its torso, tight but not too tight, just like the zoo keeper instructs. No petting. No jerky movements. Just smile for the camera and hold. After Cowen - Cohen, perhaps? - we attempt to feed a bunch of kangaroos - animals which strike me as unfinished, as if God or whomever, had started on them, got to the front paws and was like fuck it, I’m tired, they can hop around like this, good enough. The animals are medium sized, lazying about the wildlife farm we tour, wary looks on their rabbit-like faces, their middle claws extending far beyond the other three, the noncommittal display of an eternal middle finger. Our guide, the owner, raises his eyebrows when my husband introduces me as “Dag, my wife.” Because dag means something different here. It means the dried bits of shit that cling to a sheep buttocks - so from here on out I become “Dagmara, my wife.”
Suffice it to say, the marsupials are a hit with the boys. “Well, our work here is done” I wink, as if seeing koalas and kangaroos was all there was to Australia, because movies, because dumb tourists. To top it off, we buy two boomerangs at the gift shop before we head to set.
We are really here, my husband is real again; I can reach for his hand, I can catch whiffs of his smell. And I can’t see straight.
We take a picture with Dolph Lundgren in front of a trailer. Dolph is tall, and without his Ivan Drago accent, I am slightly thrown. Is it really him? We walk around cavernous stages draped with swaths of blue screen, partaking of the crafty table which do not have loads of shit candy like Twizzlers, or dry pretzels on it, but instead, as in a patisserie, offers freshly baked brownies and fluffy peanut butter sandwiches. We meet Aquaman’s real life children and they are beautiful and quite the conversationalists. I learn quickly that they take Capoeira classes and aren’t allowed on any sort of electronic devices, and my heart twists enviously at that tidbit. I want to be that parent, I think. Suddenly I want to be Lisa Bonet. Aquaman himself looks like a very attractive beast of a man, with a gorgeous face and very thin calves. He’s very sweet but I am way too tired for anything beyond “so nice to meet you.”
Later, the boys and I fall asleep at the ungodly hour of 5pm, and wake up at 4am. We stand on the balcony silently staring out at the roiling ocean. Then we film ourselves trying Vegemite, which tastes like an old scrotum sack, and I actually say that aloud, much to the giddy shock of my boys. “Shhhh, we’re gonna wake Daddy…”
Australia, one day in, is just a feeling. It is not a specific city, nor is it the literal continent - for now, we are ensconced in a suburb of Brisbane, a small stretch of hustle and bustle and beach somewhere on the Gold Coast.
Little things. The Palmolive orange scented hand soap in the bathroom reminds me of Poland; the smell left lingering on my hands sends me reeling toward childhood summers and yet I can’t recall exactly why - did my Babcia have similarly scented shampoo? A dish washing liquid she used? I don’t know, and I don’t care, and I remind myself daily to purchase some to take back to New Jersey with me. (I never do.) We take a day trip. Byron Bay is lovely, and I know Chris Hemsworth lives there, so that’s fun. My husband drives expertly on the left side of the road, pointing out landmarks and oddities, and we spend an hour on the beach, where surfers swim with dolphins in blue water that is cold and transparent.
I have yet to see a church, mosque or synagogue. The only bookstore I spot is in a mall that looks like it fell from the skies in 1999 and stayed that way. It’s dusty, and full of used, out-of-print paperbacks, all floral covers, volumes on doilies and flower arrangements. I purchase a word search book for three bucks.
The breakfasts are delicious; thick bread with a strong crust, yellow butter, slices of rosy ham, fried eggs like they’ve been painted to life. The coffee takes ages to arrive but arrives frothy and creamy and absolutely perfect. The only thing that makes me queasy is the sight of poached eggs arriving at our table - three oval white sacks with sagging skin, like things we’d find washed up on shore or in a bird’s nest. Slimy when in tact, and slimier still when my husband stabs one with a fork - the thick orange yolk oozes out like congealed blood. The word for bathroom is toilet and signs for TOILETS hang everywhere, and it’s truly the only puzzling thing I’ve encountered so far. The public playgrounds are impressive, like things from Dali’s imagination; colorful and bright and full of twisted contraptions and gigantic slides and zip lines and huge swaying nets that hang like UFOs, like things Tarzan swung on.
The people are terrific. I’m sure if I spent an appropriate amount of time with any one of them, they might become annoying or overbearing, but my casual, quick brushes with the natives are reassuring. Waiters, police officers, retail clerks, security guards are so nice and helpful it’s overwhelming. They make innocuous yet meaningful inquires; how are things going? Back in the States, they mean, wink wink, Trump Trump. We are to be pitied now, us poor, duped, stupefied Americans. Everyone is referred to as mate, including my sons. It’s like our pal, I suppose, but sounds far less condescending and much more inclusive when the Aussies say it. They’re thick skinned too, I can tell. Conversely, I think of the opposite when I think of my fellow citizens - our thin, easily bruised egos. Coming from a place filled with people prone to screeching, pining and preening like adolescents, it’s quite a breath of fresh air to be surrounded by fully-formed adults, comfortable and confident in their skin, who smile at you because they mean it, not because it’s required of them.
We try in vain to imitate the accent, each of us failing in our efforts to mimic the musicality, the ease, the lazy, soft vowels. Thirteen is thudeen. The first few times my husband says doday you, I have no idea what he means. He means .AU - as in the end of an email address. To pash means to kiss fervently. An “old feller” is a penis. She’ll be right is my favorite though - the Australian way of implying that whatever is wrong shall right itself with time. Towns have names like Coolangatta and Gympie. It’s all fantastic. Our oldest son says he wants to move here. But here only becomes real when we remember the globe in my office back in New Jersey, and how we traced the path from mainland America all the way across the surface, so far to go, the wobbling tip of my finger taking forever to make its way toward the land down under, the land beyond our imagination. “Can you believe we are actually here?” is a question posed a few times a day. We answer with shaking heads, at a loss for words.
If they could, the boys would not leave the beach, despite my worries they will catch a cold. I stand in the water like a sentinel, watching them hurtle into the waves, trying not to think about their freezing toes, or the articles I’ve read listing the top ten deadliest animals found in Australia like the thumb-nail sized Irukandji jellyfish which can kill grown man. Or the cone snail which has venom one thousand times stronger than morphine and leaves you paralyzed and gasping for life. Or sharks. Helicopters do fly over us, checking for errant fins and such, and my husband has assured me that nets are dropped and secured to keep the jellyfish and bluebottles and stingrays away, but really, what’s it take for a predator to swim over a net? Still, I let the boys carouse. I let them swim, dive, run away from and straight toward the blue-grey waves. I am less panicked about everything.
Things that don’t matter. My period is many days late. Traveling across the international date line will do that to a body. I am walking around crampy, bloated and terribly grumpy. It’s a real problem, and I make no bones about explaining to my sons about what’s happening to me. Mommy is moody because she’s about to bleed from her vagina. I joke to my friend in a text sent at 6am her time, that my period probably came on Thursday, only Thursday never really happened, did it? Under this black cloud, the kids are annoying. They seem glaringly American - loud, insistent, spoiled by the first-rate everything they are experiencing. I am the first to call them out on all of this and the first to recklessly bid 120 dollars on a toad named Gay Freddo just so my kid can take part in ‘racing’ it at a musty boozy-smelling establishment called Iron Bar (this, when we get to the tropics.)
Our first week is spent walking a fine line between total fun and total mom-losing-her-shit. Of not kissing my husband. Of wanting to buy everything, and taste everything, especially the foreign sounding snacks - Koala Carmellos, Curlywurlys, Starburst “Babies.” I wish I was a hard drinker, or even a lightweight one, so I could ‘pep’ it up come evening. Mornings are the best because I wake up ‘here’ all over again, mentally renewing a covenant - enjoy your blessed life, goddamn it. But then my beautiful son wakes up and greets me by asking if he can poop with his iPad and I grit my teeth, “poop with a book!” I think of Aquaman’s daughter, with the hair down to her waist, like a perfect, feral creature who’s never begged to download an app.
I eat too much and don’t brush my teeth enough. I wear the same black, sack-like dress over and over again. I should not have brought three pairs of shoes with me as the only ones I bother with are the cheap flip flops. I don’t care about looking like the wife of a semi-famous actor. Perhaps I should.
We arrive in Cairns - pronounced like cans - at nine pm, on day seven. Cairns is a city in the North Queensland tropics. The airport is small, but just like the one in Brisbane, it is bright, modern, spotless. I am incredibly impressed and dying to shop, but fight the urge. Outside an enormous full moon - like a prop some grip hung - greets me as I squat down to vape, while the boys wait at baggage claim. I take out my camera and zoom in. The balmy, salty air reminds me of Florida. We are here, again, a vacation inside a vacation. We drive an hour north, toward a small tourist spot called Port Douglas (pop. 1278) where ‘the rainforest meets the reef,’ a terrific family getaway, according to many a Trip Advisor testimony.
The drive is difficult, as my husband navigates on a narrow, winding road which is in turn shrouded by immense thick canopies of jungle greenery and then completely exposed to a cliff leading toward a dark, rumbling ocean that we cannot see at this time of night, but can only hear. It’s eerie, a bit like a scene from a horror movie, where any moment something large and mysterious and predatory will jump into the road and slam into our car. My husband drives on, trying to concentrate as I annoy him by asking him why we haven’t planned things in advance and reminding him that he isn’t perfect, you know.
We fight a lot in Port Douglas. The boys fight, and Patrick and I fight. The fights are absurd and revolve around sold out tours and the necessity of guides if we get to Mossman Gorge (we never do), and how ‘crocodile shows’ sound inhumane. We fight about screen time, and where to go to dinner, and about not getting sand everywhere. Reunions are difficult sometimes. When absences become the norm, togetherness takes work. That’s all I want to mention. Bickering does occur in paradise, if you were curious.
Strange things. Every time Hagrid the Crocodile clamps his jaws down on what looks like a decimated broomstick, bits of rope and rag tied to its end, I jump in my seat. When he chomps there’s an echoing sound like a champagne cork popping, only amplified, as if Hagrid is miccd. It’s nerve wracking - and as jolly and engaging as the emcee is, I find myself thinking we shouldn’t be doing this. Crocodiles are mean, and aggressive, and you don’t survive 3 million years on this earth by being the nice guy. They hate each other, the crocs do, or so we are told. You never survive an attack either. You’re a goner, if you dare to swim amongst them. We take a slow boat ride around a lagoon, and watch a dozen of them - with names like Ted and Louie - stealthily follow our boat, sidle up and wait for their bits of raw pink chicken. God, those jaws.
We take pictures, and feel much better a few minutes later as we walk amongst wallabies and roos. I say roo now with utmost confidence, feeling like after a week abroad, I have earned it. At the gift shop we buy t-shirts, a crocodile calling whistle, and a soft, stuffed kangaroo which my oldest son immediately christens Jeremy. I ask my husband if crocodile printed man thongs called “Snappers!” are the perfect gifts for my brothers-in-law. Sadly, he shakes his head no.
Snorkeling in the Low Isles is interesting. We figure 90 minutes to the Great Barrier Reef would make us tired and seasick - suddenly we strike ourselves as amateurs but go with it - and opt for a quick, rollicking jaunt aboard the Reef Sprinter. We pull up to the low reef and immediately a smell hits us hard. Fishy. Rotting. I don the wet suit, get fitted with a prescription lens snorkeling mask (which is very exciting,) slip into the flippers, and I even jump into the water. And then four meaty, massive fish graze my thighs, and I am done. It’s hard work, and breathing is weird, and suddenly I feel claustrophobic, and the smell is overwhelming, and the coral is too close - low tide due to full moon - and I am totally fine swimming back to the boat that brought us out. It’s just as brave to admit your fears, as it is to conquer them, I say being funny, but also meaning it. I spend the remainder of my time sneaking in puffs of my vape and taking pictures of my boys. They’re proud of me anyway. My little guy heads back too, after twenty valiant minutes with his tiny head in the water. I can’t say enough how thrilled I am that both my sons have inherited their father’s joie de vivre and adventuresome spirit. They are usually up for anything. You go right ahead, I tell them, and I’ll stay here and write about it. Later, we race cane toads - don’t ask, or just look up the Iron Bar in Port Douglas - and go back to the hotel, where the boys are reunited with their iPads, and I sit on the deck and listen to annoying British teenagers thrash around in the communal pool, and wonder when my bad mood will lift.
Best things. My period arrives in Sydney, and finally I turn back to my good old self. My good mom self. I am happy. My back doesn’t hurt. My smiles are wide, and last all day long. Sydney is a glorious city. Imagine a turn of the century town, imagine Boston, or New Orleans, or even Paris, and then imagine it fully preserved, allowing modernity to sprout, but not take over. That’s Sydney - where the antiquated bits remain front and center, and the high rises merely loom as shadows. A gorgeous thing, for time to conjoin, to mingle, to not be erased. I can’t get enough. I also can’t pinpoint what this place reminds me of, only the emotions it stirs inside me - nostalgia, happiness, wonder.
On our first night we walk to the Sydney Observatory and stare out in awe at the skyline; the Harbour Bridge twinkling red and green like a Christmas Tree, the opera house way off in the distance like a paper fan on water, a brilliant crimson sunset. Someone is flying a drone. The boys run down the hill and attempt to climb a giant tree straight out of a Roal Dahl book. We could live here, I say stupidly, contentedly, and I kind of mean it. It’s possible to enjoy life, to eek every ounce of magic and wonder from it, without fear or fret. It’s possible to pretend we are a family of well-off nomads, traversing carefree, imagining a life abroad, living only for the sake of experiencing happiness. It’s possible for life to be like from a movie. Thoughts like this are hard to come by for me, and for ten minutes, sitting in the cool grass on a picturesque knoll overlooking a strange, gorgeous city, I allow myself.
There are more brown people is Sydney, more Asians, more tourists speaking Dutch or German or Portuguese, and in some street corners, as we head toward the aquarium, I even spy tattered sleeping bags which house the homeless. The line to get into Sea Life is long and winding and I am glad my kids will have to wait. I worry that always skipping ahead, or often flying business, or staying in five-star hotels is ruining them somehow - that they won’t know how to deal with real life, that soon they’ll take our good fortune for granted because it will cease to become out-of-the-ordinary and become banal. Which is why at every stop, I regale them with stories of my poor-immigrant beginnings. There was no Fast Pass when I was a kid, my husband quips. I sat in the back of the plane back when people were allowed to smoke, I point out, nine hours to Poland with only a book and my head aching from the fumes, imagine it. I want them to really imagine it, and later, when it takes us thirty minutes to get on the rickety Wild Mouse roller coaster at Luna Park, I am glad, and decide to get on too, even though I hate that shit.
Everywhere we go, the rooftops of old buildings boast edifices with historic dates inscribed into the original brick. On the sidewalks are stone slabs fitted into the pavement which tell short, amazing stories: “17 well-behaved convicts where made night watchmen here.” These reminders of the city’s history are beautiful, and I wish my adopted New York City showed the same pride and care. My husband explains that NYC is on a small island and in an effort to expand and make room, the city had to eradicate whatever stood in the way. It couldn’t bloom sideways or into suburbs - there are no suburbs, no outer city limits, unless you count Hoboken et al. Still, I wish Americans in general, held a higher regard for their architecture, and their roots.
The Langham Hotel on Kent Street is accented in pink. A creamy pink old-timey cab sits out front, the bathroom wallpaper is pink, and the pens bedside are pink and gold and so lovely that I slip one into my purse. When you walk into the lobby, you are taken aback by how immaculate every surface is, and by the floral scent in the air. This place smells like a bathtub, my seven-year-old announces and I know what he means. Like a bathtub full of rose petals. We could be in a Jane Austen novel, if Jane Austen had taken up the hospitality service. Everything is warm - from the silky sheets to the velvet floor length drapery - and opulent - from the extraordinary chandeliers in the lobby to the the enormous purple orchids arranged on many a marble tabletop. I’d live here too, if I was not a real person who went to sleep without wiping off her make-up, or who snuck vanilla nougat at 1am while reading a book about a recluse, or who grew up in the Glenwood Housing Projects and never forgot her past. I imagine my mother here, my sisters. I imagine my father, who would probably nit pick and point out discrepancies, because my father is a person who does not know how to trust beautiful things.
At a chemist’s my son pleads with me to buy him a pair of yellow sloughing shower gloves. These, along with a glitter filled rainbow-colored baton, are to make up his regalia. He is “The Wisher” now, and for the rest of our stay in Sydney he walks around wearing the gloves and gripping his baton, asking us to make wishes, which will, on an eighty percent guarantee, come true. I wish for a smooth flight back to Newark, and for my 41st year on earth to be the best one yet. The rare Pokemon my older son wishes for comes to fruition a few blocks later, much to his joy and to The Wisher’s complete shock. We walk around The Rocks, a neighborhood full of chocolate shops and galleries, making more and more wishes, until at the Museum of Contemporary Art we are told the baton must be cloaked. Instead, I bury it in my purse, and we roam around, not hiding our disdain for some of the more abstract artwork like blank white canvases, or a dried sculpture of an electrical plug. During security check at the airport, the wishing baton is left behind in a bin. I am unreasonably sad about it.
Things we talk about. Manners. Money. School. Food. Animals. Dreams. We find dream dictionaries online and look up flying, teeth crumbling, falling into holes with cousins, when a friend pushes the girl you have a crush on over a cliff. We wonder why dreams happen, we dissect the inner workings of our varied brains, while Bill, our driver pretends not to listen. He tells us about the beaches here, and what to watch out for. He tells us that Brad Pitt made him try the Batman free fall ride at Movie World. We talk about love, and what country we’d move to for a year if we had to, if we had a choice. We talk about how boring New Jersey will seem, and what we’ll do to occupy the remains of our summer once we are back home. We play endless rounds of Would You Rather - would you rather have penises growing our of your ears or a butthole on your chin? (Because, lest we forget I am in the company of three basic males.) We talk about our favorite things so far (snorkeling, the amusement park, seeing a wallaby with a baby in its pouch) and what we want to do before we depart. We talk about how we will not climb Harbour Bridge, because Kass doesn’t meet the age requirement and because well, mommy doesn’t want to die in Sydney. Mostly, we talk about how goddamn lucky we are.
The last things. Back in Brisbane, or Broadbeach, or Gold Coast - I still don’t know what to call it - we don’t fall asleep till very late. Our jet lag is gone now, no traces left. Instead we have trouble falling asleep and trouble waking up at a decent hour. I finish the book I bought at a wonderful bookstore I finally stumbled upon in the other mall, and having relayed the plot as I learned it to my sons, they are now eager to hear how it ends. I tell them, and we are all three, just a wee bit disappointed. It is eleven pm, and I start on another book, short stories about the indigenous and minority Australian experience. My husband puts in loads of laundry, and watches a rugby game on TV. Tomorrow is our last day and we have no major plans aside a final frolic in the ocean, a trip to the mall to purchase some local sports jerseys and more books. Maybe we’ll go to the movies. I have strange dreams about cutting off all my hair. We walk up at ten am, groggy, and quiet. We don’t want to go home just yet.
I am sitting on the balcony again. It’s hard to believe two weeks have gone by. It’s hard to believe our real life is waiting for us, and that in twenty-four hours we will be reunited with the dogs and guinea pigs, back in all the ennui and humidity the East Coast has to offer. Already we are making plans for more trips. There will be six weeks of summer left when we get back. This makes us happy. I look across the way warily, squinting to make out the familiar figures of my three boys, my companions on this journey. I love them more than I did when we started this trip, and perhaps that is the best outcome of any vacation.
There is nobody in the water but them - it must be truly cold today. The waves are no joke. Every time a child screams I stop and cock my head to ascertain if the echoing sound - of panic? joy? - is familiar to me. For a minute I worry that the something awful I briefly contemplated two weeks ago, will happen today, now, as I write this. A jellyfish sting. A rip tide. A shark. I sip my orange juice and remind myself about that sentence I jotted down in my husband’s birthday card, about how our story won’t end tragically. Our story will end quietly, naturally, after many adventures, many idle hours full of love, tiffs, and laughter. It will end when it is supposed to end, and I will have nothing to do with it. For now, I stare out at the mighty Pacific, and smile, my mind already humming with newly formed memories. I smile knowing that wherever we are, or wherever we end up next, as long as we are together - she’ll be right.
