I spent my vacation with family. One night as I was ladling beef stroganoff for ten children and there was not another adult in sight I began to question that I was, in fact, on a vacation. We were gone for a week and a half, returning last Wednesday night. Thursday I unpacked, did laundry and repacked. Then left, early Friday, for a weekend on an island with eight other women, all writers.
It is probably no surprise that I got more rest and refilling out of those three days than I had the previous ten. When I told my carpal tunnel inducing beef stroganoff story, one of the women suggested I call it “visiting family”, which is good and fun and beautiful, but is not, truly, a vacation.
Glad to hear you are alive.
My visions of your vacation had not included ladling stroganoff to dozens of children all by your self.
The vacation in my imagination was much more appealing.
Want to hear my version?
You had left us only the briefest snapshot, so I had to make a few things up. Poetic license and all that.
You wrote from a cold kitchen in a home in Maine, probably a bed and breakfast or perhaps the home of an older aunt and uncle who still keep the place up very nicely. It was an old farmhouse, no doubt, most likely white with dark green shutters and a red front door, or maybe a light yellow house with white trim. Hard to say. It had a long, curving driveway, that wound through crimson maples and golden poplars and several neat and tidy outbuildings. Piles of fall leaves which had just been raked that day were scattered about and the smell of smoke still lingered in the air outside from the burn pile.
It was late at night, and I imagined you were there sneaking a homemade cookie and some hot cocoa, pulling up a barstool to the counter and signing on to your blog for a moment while you waited for the water to boil, shivering a little in your PJ’s as you munched your cookie. Once the cocoa was made, one mug for you and one for Paul, oh, and a cookie for him (and another for yourself since you had somehow finished yours already), you signed off. Balancing steaming mugs and cookies, you padded quietly down the hall, across the creaky, wide-plank hardwood floor in your bare feet. The hall was dark, but your bedroom door was left open a crack and the soft light coming through it was enough to light your way. You pushed the door open with your foot and cringed when it squeaked, hoping not to awaken anyone–either the B&B hosts or your aunt and uncle, ever-practical early to bed folk either way.
The last thing I remember was you climbing into the tall four-poster bed, propping yourself up with the pile of down pillows, and pulling the heavy down comforter up over you. Once you were comfortable, you reached over onto the nightstand for your cocoa and cookie, being careful not spill or make crumbs, and gazed up at the glittering stars o’erhead through the skylight, a recent addition to the farmhouse, but a wonderful touch in the well-appointed guest room.
The rest of the trip is a little fuzzy. That was all you left me with.
Kids? Oh, they had stayed with Grandma.
Paul had to be in Maine for business, and in a rare move, had invited you to come along. While he spent his days in long meetings, you had spent your time curled up by the fire with a stack of books, stopping only to stretch occasionally, fill up your coffee, don one of the heavy coats hung on the hooks by the back door, and go for a walk in the crisp fall air.
Way better than stroganoff, don’t you think?
I am anxious to hear more, whether reality-based or revisionist, about both the family visit and the writer’s retreat.
Glad you’re back.
I need to book my travel through your imagination!
And yet the lack of rest is compensated with the joy of spending time with family.
Seeing Christopher with his arms around his cousin, Eli’s, shoulders and Eli’s arm around his; Eden holding hands and then spontaneously hugging her little cousins; Lydia playing cards and riding bikes with a pack of them and Paul standing next to his big brother is worth any energy expended to make it so.
I agree – visiting family is a much better description 🙂
The notes to the teary-eyed hit, “I’m lucky” are playing in my mind at the moment, and for good reason.
Thanks Babe for the gift you are.