We have been together for forty years. We’ve got vacations figured out. Um. But like writing, vacations can inspire revision. Over and over as times change, as we change. For example, road trips. We have been doing them our entire married life. Camping with the boys when they were small all the way to here and now when Al retired and bought a super-comfortable truck. (AC in the seats! A fancy box top to keep our stuff safe. Seats that lay flat for a nap.)
This year, on the way home to Florida from Michigan, I realized I was done with road trips. This year was meant to be a vacation from the Florida summer heat for Al. I brought all my writing tools so I could get some work done. Writers don’t really take vacations. At the very least we are thinking about our story. Or maybe that’s just me. Writing is my vacation from reality. Now I’m retired I have become more immersed into the waves of imagination. I really could have skipped a vacation this year but Al has been miserable in the deep humidity of Florida summer.
He said “I am an outdoor guy. And I am miserable.” This from a man who never complains. He worked so much before retirement I hadn’t realized the outdoorness of him. I knew the indoorness of me. Growing up in the 50s and 60s, I wanted to spend summers camped out in my room reading. Sometimes my mom let me be. Other times I was forced outdoors. But unlike Al, I didn’t play sports or go to sports events or putz around the garage, tinkering with cars and motorcycles. And camping? Well with three males and just me, I made sure I brought a book camping.
So he brought his golf clubs and I brought my Kindle, my laptop, and my iPad. Plus notebooks. But then reality hit. Al’s dad was in need of a lot of care. Al stepped in to help out. I looked everywhere for my password sheet as I tried to connect to WiFi in eight different places during the month we were gone. It worked less than I had hoped. I loved seeing my family, the entire family for the first time in so long. That was the highlight for me. Al’s family is like my own and our longtime friends are also a kind of family so I had those good times, too.
But mostly I missed home. After a month, on the way back south, I said “I think I’m out of road trips.” We discussed buying a place in Michigan with a garage where we would keep a car and then just fly north and south like snow/sun birds. This was a compromise between me being happy in Florida and Al wanting Michigan summer. I do love autumn in Michigan. And if we had one place where all the passwords always worked and all my things were around me…I might be okay. I might be able to write every day.
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