You’d think that after one week of radio silence, I would be able to come up with a more eloquent opening line. In my defense though, “uhhh” is the perfect summation of my brain after these punch-drunk bumblebee days. I touched down on Italian soil last Monday morning just long enough to get my luggage and hurry out to the car where I was immediately swept up in the precious whirlwind of family life. In keeping with time-honored traditions, both girls had cultivated elaborate winter colds, so they stayed home from school all week to kiss my kneecaps while I cleaned. I didn’t mind.
But about cleaning… Jet lag didn’t throw off my sleep schedules this time so much as it did my seasons. Or maybe all those hours spent basking in the 85° sunscape of Miami-bound traffic were to blame. Either way, my spring cleaning instincts jumpstarted, and I was compelled beyond all reason or persuasion to organize the medicine cabinets that first day home. The second day, the oven needed to be scrubbed, and we had company the third evening, so the dust bunnies lurking behind the credenza had to go. If you want the truth, my noble blogging intentions have gone unheeded simply because I’ve been so busy finding inaccessible corners of the house to clean.
Ah well. (No apologizing, notice!) I had promised myself a week to regain my footing here at home, and though I didn’t necessarily expect that footing to take place on a step ladder with a feather duster in my hand and a delighted little girl swinging from each leg, I still say it counts. Plus, what else is a gal supposed to do after toting spring across the ocean in her carry-on?
Airlines encourage passengers to arrive three hours before their scheduled flight times, but considering the vast emptiness of my gate’s waiting area, I’m the only one zealous enough to do so. I feel like I should be sitting bolt upright clutching a carpet bag and craning my head toward each new marvel à la Anne Shirley. A gingham dress would be a nice touch too; it would look far more earnest than my current getup of hoodie and headphones. I’m on my way home after a long-short time warp of a week, and the threads connecting me to my husband and girls have wound themselves so tightly around my heart that it’s in danger of bursting a seam.
How do parents travel for a living? Or spouses, for that matter? Does that lifestyle grow familiar with time, or does it ache continually like a phantom limb? I know I’m a little pathetic here, but that’s okay. I’ll be home soon smothering my girls with kisses and passing out Nonna’s oatmeal-raisin cookies. Just not soon enough… what with three hours until my flight and all.
Florida is colder than I imagined, though I suspect that may be due to the potent combination of rain clouds and my delicate sunflower of a personality. If these 75° were accompanied by sunshine, I would be running around in short-sleeved exultation, but as it is, I’m nursing my jet lag with special roast (what makes it special, I wonder?) and trying to summon the energy to decide on an outfit.
My trip here was mercifully smooth. No luggage was lost, no flights were missed, and my eardrums did not explode on the plane despite threatening to for a solid four eternities (I picked up some of these for the return trip and hope to goodness they work as advertised). Re-entry was emotionally smoother than I expected as well. I remember the sudden, swooping disillusion of my first visit to the U.S. after we moved to Italy—how everything looked too big, how I stuttered over my native tongue, how conspicuous and foreign I felt. This time, American soil feels familiar. Not home exactly, but welcoming all the same.
It’s easy to forget in all the day-to-dayness of life that I’m an expat, a transplantee. People often come to my blog expecting to read about life abroad, and I wonder if I should apologize for not writing about it more. Perhaps it’s like being married to a celebrity; you know in the back of your mind that he’s one of Hollywood’s 50 sexiest men and a recurring figure in daydreams worldwide, but your immediate focus is balancing your checkbooks or working through an argument or coordinating your school pick-up schedules. I’m don’t think it’s possible to remain starstruck with the everyday. However, trips like this help prod my awareness out of hibernation, and for that I am grateful… and in dire need of more special roast.
I feel like I should preface whatever comes out of my fingers next by saying that sometime during the night, my brain tripped into a custard quagmire and is now up to its eyeballs in thick, eggy blandness. I have nothing interesting to say although you might think I would considering I’m hopping on a Florida-bound plane Sunday morning and have less than a week to arrange for my family’s survival in my absence and to talk myself out of any dramatic airport scenes. There’s a slight possibility that I’m not looking forward to the trip. (Maybe that explains why I spent all morning avoiding my damn to-do list? And now I’m swearing. F—crap.)
Here’s the thing: While this trip really isn’t a big deal—just a skip over the pond to renew some documents and eat fried okra as much as possible—my imagination has taken it upon itself to prepare me for any eventuality. The following is a sample of likely trip outcomes, courtesy of my flair for the dramatic:
Blizzard-hurricaness bury the plane during my layover on the East Coast, pulling down frigid air from the melting polar ice caps that freezes everything on contact and ushers us into the second ice age just like Dennis Quaid predicted; I miss my flight.
I arrive safely, but the U.S. customs official revokes my citizenship because I chose to live elsewhere, and I am forced to spend the rest of my life wandering the airport countryless à la Tom Hanks.
I forget to leave detailed instructions for our washing machine (which no longer has indicative markings because the factory painted them on with a special air-soluble glaze), and my family runs out of clean clothes and slowly dies of scabies while I search in vain for free wi-fi.
Everything goes smoothly and I’m allowed to return home, but my ears explode on the flight due to pressure changes and the fact that they are world-class wimps, and the resulting spatter of gore gunks up the landing gear resulting in a spectacular crash; my corpse is recovered and donated to science who rejects it on the grounds of earlessness.
I guess what it all boils down to is that I don’t want to leave my husband and girls, even for a week. The thrill of adventure is notably absent this time; travel-related calamities are no fun without my little family to share them with. True, I’ll get to read entire books uninterrupted on the plane, and I might even get to eat my Sky Chef boeuf bourguignon while it’s still hot, but… I’ll miss them. A lot. The end.
Dear husband,
I’m enmeshed in the seventh traffic snarl of the morning, though this one seems to be more of a Gordian Knot. No one has moved for the duration of my Vampire Weekend album, and several motorists are now rummaging in their trunks for survival rations. The bus driver from two cars behind has been walking up and down the ranks encouraging us to give up hope. If we don’t make it to the airport next week to pick you up, you’ll at least know where we are (A1 off-ramp in front of the Birra Moretti outlet, second guardrail down).
This has been an interesting morning, and not just due to our satanically early wake up time. The girls have plotted together to insure that at least one of them needs the bathroom at all times except when we are actually in one. Magellan’s engine light is on, its oil light is too, and the Italian traffic we have come to know and love has already added two hours to our return trip. I’ve put together a charming visual presentation of the morning so far, compliments of my cell phone camera:
While sitting in traffic is not among my favorite activities on the planet, it’s honestly not getting to me too much today. My thoughts are back at the airport with you, and every kilometer I’ve driven has felt like stretching a heavy-duty rubber band. That’s how it should be, I think, but it doesn’t change that heading home without you is a confusingly conscious effort.
I imagine you’re somewhere over the Alps right now, and I wonder about the likelihood of scoring a turkey dinner on a European airline. We’ll do our Thanksgiving after you get back, even if it’s just sneaking some bites of stuffing while we hang Christmas ornaments, but I can’t quite forget that today is the holiday itself. It’s part of my heritage no matter what country I’m in, no matter whether or not we can spend it together. So happy Thanksgiving, dear. I’m thankful that I still miss you before we’re even done kissing goodbye. I’m thankful that our car is more of a captive audience than a casualty of the traffic today. I’m thankful that I’ll get to spend the evening with friends and you with family and that we have about a billion forms of technology to keep us connected while you’re away, and finally, I’m thankful that my heritage allows me to spend this afternoon napping… even if has to happen on the A1 off-ramp in front of the Birra Moretti outlet, second guardrail down.
In some ways, we were more than ready to hit the road. We were beginning to miss the familiarity of our home routines, my kitchen gadgetry, your Lego collection, PIZZA. However, the novelty of Scotland still glittered through its cloud cover, and we left the best way one can leave a place—full of hope to return. Of course, we might not have been so cheery had we realized that nine (9) hours of the UK’s thickest traffic stood between us and our campsite near Dover. You girls did amazingly well—a few pillows, some dry-erase markers, and plenty of loud music, and you’re model travelers—but my goodness… By our third full decade spent inching around the London Orbital, I had to choose between weeping and using the English language in exciting and colorful ways. Thank goodness for the aforementioned loud music.
Happily oblivious to the pressures of driving on blanky-blankish roads among blankety percent of the blanking world’s blanker-blanked vehicle population, most of which was blankly blanketing at a blank of 0.blank miles per blankety blank.
By the time we arrived in Folkestone, we barely had enough energy to set up our tent, eat fish ‘n’ chips, and get in several pointless arguments before crashing for the night. (The last argument or two took some real effort, but I’m proud of us for being able to fit in those extra misunderstandings and irritations, especially after such a long day.) The next morning dawned beautifully though. We made it onto our ferry with three minutes to spare, you girls immediately took up residence in the play room, and all was well with our souls once again. Well, mostly. We still had to drive across the flat expanse of flatness that is Belgium, but through a herculean effort, your dad managed not to fall asleep at the wheel, and we were soon rolling through Luxembourg’s blessedly varied terrain.
Are you taking notes, Belgium?
Our destination for the night was the fairy tale town of Vianden nestled in a forest along the sleepy River Our. We quickly discovered that unlike the larger, more touristy Luxembourg City, Vianden’s locals were merely trilingual, and as your dad and I speak a combined total of six words in French and German and a combined total of zero in Luxembourgish, communication proved amusing. (For the most part, that is. Trying to explain to the campground manager that we wanted an electric hook-up? Definitely. Enduring frigid, cobwebby showers before realizing there was an entirely separate shower complex? A little less so.) Also, it was a shock to our senses emerging from the UK’s overarching coolness into the muggy, sweltering underbelly of summer in mainland Europe. The first thing you girls did at the campground was ride the playground chicken back to Scotland where it was not 1,000,000°C.
“Hey girls, what is your chicken named?”
“It’s not a chicken! It’s a rooster!”
“Okay, so what is your rooster named?”
“Chicken.”
However, we managed not only to survive our stay but to be utterly charmed. Vianden’s main attraction is a beautiful little castle perched halfway up the mountainside, accessible by foot or chair lift. In deference to short legs, we chose the latter. (You’re welcome!) Your dad used his superpowers to convince the lift attendant that they understood each other, and we soon found ourselves being whisked up and away over the town rooftops, the gentle turns of the river, and the breathtaking Château de Vianden over which you girls immediately claimed jurisdiction. None of us had gotten enough of hiking yet (right? right?), so we naturally opted to walk down the mountain rather than take the return lift… which led to us opting to spend the castle entrance fee on ice cream. Naturally.
You girls were mightily in favor of the ice cream part of our decision.
Unfortunately for your future prospects, we didn’t move into the castle. I can’t say I would have minded the view; Vianden’s patch of buildings was an extension of the lush countryside, and daydreams practically spun themselves out of the tranquil hum of its summer air. However, driving around for an hour trying to find the town’s one ATM and taking that cold shower (did I mention the cold shower? and its exceeding coldness? Had it not been the hottest day of the year, I would still be frozen to the tile floor) made me pine rather sharply for home. Plus, and I hate to admit this, but the enchantment of tent life was starting to wear thin. The ground was seeming harder, the rooms smaller, and the bathrooms farther away. Conveniently for our collective sanity’s sake, we had only one stop left on our adventure.
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