32 of 40

Written April 2016

Playing golf is a good activity for parents of young children because it there are so many similarities. Fun, frustrating and makes your arms sore. Riding ATVs in sand dunes is like raising toddlers in that you are barely in control, sometimes exhilarated and acutely aware that if something happens to you it will be bad news for a lot of small people.

We took a vacation. Turns out, that was a very great idea. It's not quite 8am and I'm awake, because I'm not much of a sleeper-inner. The beauty of not quite eight o'clock is that I am alone. No one is touching me or demanding breakfast. I have time to slowly wake to the day, which never happens at home.

We've exhausted ourselves--no laying by the pool or reflexology. No walks on the beach, except the short one down to the water's edge in Pismo where we awaited the shuttle to come pick us up and drive us down the sand to Steve's ATVs. No novel reading, though I did read through most of a bizarre local newspaper full of murder plots and corrupt politicians. We watched two movies. Went out to eat. Walked down the hill into the small town of Avila Beach. Hit the Farmer's Market where we bought tacos from a stand, meat piled so high on top of those corn disks it was impossible to hold. Best food we've had all trip.

Turns out the best way to appreciate your own young children is to go to a Farmer's Market without them. There you can admire the beautiful, lively, flirtatatious babies and toddlers that don't belong to you. So many babies made eyes at me and it was probably because I was smilingly looking at them, like I used to before I was a mom. When I longed for a baby and imagined myself strolling through the tents with my cuddly baby strapped to my chest. Last night we could hear the sounds, questions and tantrums, of other peoples' children, miss and admire ours from afar because they weren't there, and fully acknowledge that if they were there we would have our eyes to ground-level, chasing and grabbing and coralling. There would be no flirting with other babies because I wouldn't have the energy or attention-span to look at other peoples' babies.

I don't know why it never occurred to me before I had children that some of the childless people and couples I was seeing did have children but had left them elsewhere.I thought I would be forever changed as a mother, that people would see it on my skin whether the kids were with me or not. And I am forever changed, but it's not always apparent from the outside.

This trip has been full of noticing how much and what the kids would love. The playgrounds, one in the sand and one just across the street. The dogs running in the sand. The lizard doing push-ups in the sun. The golf cart. The sweets. They would have so much fun here. We will hopefully bring them someday and see how different it is to be with them. How it is no longer easy to stroll down the hill to the beach--crossing the big road with the four of them would be tricky and a short walk becomes a long walk with all those little legs.

My body feels good and strong with muscle aches from being well-used. We push each other to do more--without him here I would have spent the whole trip lounging. Without me, he wouldn't have sought out the adventures I found. We have fun together. We'd forgotten what it felt like.

Next year I will be 40. This translates into not being able to tell how old people are. We stood in line for nachos and then in the same line again for a watermelon agua fresca. The four young women ahead of us started out in their 20s but the longer we stood behind them, the younger they got. Perhaps high school? How is it that so many people inhabit the ages we have already lived through? How can I simultaneously remember exactly what it felt like to be sixteen while looking at sixteen year olds in wonder and confusion, trying to imagine what it feels like to be them?

There are so many different lives to be lived. So many places to go. So many ways to step outside your own life for a moment, to see it through new, rested eyes. To remember what it felt like before. To imagine what it might feel like someday. Vacation. I highly recommend it.