We’re off to the airport this morning after our lovely week in the Bahamas. The best thing about a family vacation when your kids are older is the opportunity to have every meal with them. We rarely eat together when they are home, but we always dine together when we travel.
This morning, as we had our last breakfast on a terrace overlooking the sea, we remarked on the other people who were dining – many of whom we had given special nicknames. We’re inveterate people watchers (and mockers) we four, and had been reporting back to each other every day on the antics of Rude Guy, who had ambushed the manager with a torrent of abuse within minutes of arriving here, coincidentally, at the same time that we arrived. So appalled were we by his behavior that we all went out of our way to prove to the staff that we had no connection to him and his frowning wife. There was much rolling of eyes and glaring from our camp and ridiculous overtipping out of some sort of guilt by association. We had arrived on this quiet, idyllic island on the same plane as these griping sourpusses and we felt that we owed the island some sort of compensation. Then there was dear, dear Doting Dad, who spent an entire week walking around cuddling and nuzzling his baby daughter, who couldn’t have been more than three months old. The handsome, middle-aged man and his daughter could be found rocking under a shady tree by the pool, or strolling along the pathways (she held in the crook of his arm with her plump cheek pressed to his) or under an umbrella in the sand – she kicking her feet in the air, he smiling at her, helplessly in love. When he carried her into the restaurant one evening, the two of them were dressed in crisp colorful, matching resort wear – hers with ballooning diaper-concealing pantaloons. I told the kids, excitedly, that I thought he was a single dad who had decided to adopt the baby or have her by surrogate, but the kids told me they’d seen the mom reading by the pool each day, alone. She became Lazy Mom to us. Of course there was wise Leo, the Tennis Whisperer and hunky Calvin, his son. And on the beach, each day, a procession of strangers paraded past. Young honeymooners, old marrieds, pairs of women -deep in conversation, athletes running in the sand, swimmers, dealers in jewelry (or worse), laughing children and tired parents – all revealing truths that have been lost to us these cold months up north – hard and beautiful truths about youth and age. The beach walkers moved along the water’s edge like a patient migrating herd, their heads bent slightly into the wind, their bosoms, bellies, scars, tattoos, pregnancies, cellulite, hair, muscles, wrinkles and veins all unabashedly exposed, like imperfect but delightful offerings to the merciless sun and to anybody else who cared to look.
















Subscribe

