Summer Travels

Dear Families
It’s July already! My family’s 3 week adventure in Europe has come full circle. We are now on Washington Island, the place that for me, embodies home.

I recently read a New Yorker Magazine article (link) https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/the-case-against-travel The author challenged the notion that to use one’s precious few weeks of vacation time traveling to exotic places to get the Instagram worthy photos is the pinnacle of status, the goal to which we should all aspire, or at least the photos we should all envy in someone else’s feed. The author wasn’t against travel per se; he was questioning the modern tendency to gawk at someone else’s culture, snap a selfie, and then return home having learned nothing about ourselves or our surroundings. He argued that travel, like any other parts of our life, should change us, should mould or shape us in some way.

Having just traveled, I tend to agree with the author. Don’t misunderstand me: all in all, we had many amazing experiences and we are glad we had this opportunity to celebrate 25 years of marriage, and our older daughter’s exchange program.

Here’s what I think the article boils down to, and the 3 things I’d like you to know about my trip: 

A) Don’t believe the Instagram version of other people’s summers—not even mine.

Yes, we had our —literal—mountaintop moments; we also had the moments when all four of our basic needs were competing—my exhaustion, my kid’s sensory overwhelm, my teen’s hunger, my husband’s need to navigate unfamiliar bus/train schedules in a language we don’t speak—collided—and the way we reacted to one another in those moments was less than stellar. This is what forgiveness is for. I found myself thinking “we could bicker like this at home for a lot less money.” As they say, “wherever you go, there you are.”

So if you’re in your kitchen as you read this, getting down on yourself for having snapped at your toddler dripping popsicle juice all over the floor you just mopped, fantasizing about far away places, take heart. More than once on this trip I caught myself saying something to the effect of “pretend like you like your sister long enough to take this picture.” Parenting can push our buttons wherever we find ourselves.

 

B) Parenting is universal and play is essential.

Maybe my ears are tuned after nearly 25 years of doing relational work with kids and families, but everywhere we went, it was clear to me that parenting is universal.
•I watched a teenager give the long-suffering “yes, Mommm” sigh even though I couldn’t understand the specific warning this parent was giving, it was clear this teen already knew it all.
•I watched a young child at the airport bust into a run into a grandparents’ arms to be scooped up and twirled around, and though I didn’t understand the words, I knew exactly what they were saying.
•I saw a mother wearing hijab patiently push a middle school sized child in a wheelchair through customs, providing his iPad with the universal soother Baby Shark Song as his buffer against the long wait and the unfamiliar.
•I watched a mischievous grandpa with a twinkle in his eye teasingly “steal” fries from his grandson’s plate—and the delight in the reaction at being “caught in the act” and the whole family’s laughter that ensued from this good natured teasing.
•Scolding your kids not to run alongside the pool sounds the same in any language— and so does the laughter and splashing of the families in the relief of the cool pool on a hot day. At the community pool in Salzburg, the water feels just as refreshing, the ice cream just as delightful. With the exception of the language printed on the changing room doors, it may as well have been a scene snatched from Kaiser Pool or Memorial Park. People are people everywhere. Everyone, at every age, needs the appropriate, rewarding release of daily stress that play provides.

C)  Childhood, —and summer,— is fleeting; take time to notice it. 

I watched a child I’m guessing to be about 8 or 9 gathering sticks and rocks along the gravelly shore, carefully placing them in a row in order from shortest to longest. As all the other kids were splashing in the water, this child was happily in the zone, creating intricate visual patterns. The mom kept trying to get her to put down the sticks, to go play with the other kids and their shovels & plastic buckets , to set down the seaweed drenched detritus; urging her to “hurry up and play before it’s time to go.” I thought about how many times I’ve been that parent, and how often I’ve failed to really arrive wherever I am at the moment.

This child was present. This child was at the beach. This sculpture at the waters edge would get swallowed up by the ocean at high tide, but for now, this child’s attention, her soul, and her heart were all in the same place at the same time. The impermanence of her play was assumed, her attention to just this one stone, just this one stick was what allowed her to be enveloped in her play.

How much of the time are we just getting on to the next moment? Just when we’ve completed the mornings’ chores, the tide of the day sweeps in and soon our work is no longer visible. But just like for this little girl, the magic is in the doing, not in the done.

From a distance I wondered what would happen if mom joined her daughter, offered her a stick, a stone, and watched with attentive curiosity where the girl would add it? Could that have been the moment of connection that lasts beyond the next tide?

The how’s and why’s of play are just like the shore. The moments are fleeting, but the relationships those moment build, they matter. Wherever we go, here we are.  So let’s dig in— to parenting, to play, to life—together.

Sincerely, 

Sally 

[Photo captions: 
Statue by Icelandic Sculptor Sigmund Asmunder at the Asmunderfn Museum in Reykjavik Iceland, depicts a parent and young child nestled together in an intimate embrace

My family at a scenic hilltop overlooking the Rhine River on the Germany France border.

Myself and my two daughters catching what little bit nap could be taken on the travel tables on a long, hot crowded train ride across central Germany. -photo credit: my husband, of course. 

My girls playing on an indoor teeter-totter as part of an interactive exhibit at the National Art Museum, Reykjavik. 

My younger child, pretending to be a brave Viking explorer by imitating the position of the Leif Eriksson statue at Hallgrimskirke in Reykjavik; then pretending to be a “grumpy Viking” wearing a toy Viking hat with horns inside a touristy gift shop. ]