Bag of Illusions

Travel is a great way to tweak first and only impressions.

“I’m going to Ireland for work,” my husband announces.

I can’t help it.  My lower lip automatically protrudes and I glower.

You don’t even like Guinness or Smithwicks, or steamed mussels or jigs or - -

“Want to come along?” he asks.

I’m just about to scream “yes,” but then I realize I’m tight on cash and I have appointments.  My car needs some repair work and we don’t have a dog sitter who lives close by anymore.  Such is the price of modern married finances.  Separate is not equal – although it keeps spending arguments to a minimum.

My lip starts to quiver.

“I figure since it’s our 15 year anniversary, we can relive our honeymoon,” he continues.  “It can be our anniversary gift.”

Gift?

My lip pops back in and the glower turns into a grin.  My husband laughs.

“I guess that means, ‘yes?’”

YES!!

(Good thing I got the passport renewed!)

I find a dog sitter.

I pull up the old edition of what needs to be done, emergency contacts, and maps. Much has changed over the couple years since we last traveled together.  I’m adding, adjusting … and deleting.  My finger pauses, hovering over the delete button each time it’s something that relates to Uber Hund.  I feel guilty about erasing him, declaring him irrelevant. Is it foolish that I save the old copy?

I clean house like a madwoman.  Nothing makes me realize my lax cleaning habits more than having guests over, and having someone living in our house while we’re gone makes me even more aware.  I even vacuum the box springs.

I get the Euros.  I haven’t seen them before.  I spread them out and my husband and I study the various denominations.  We hold them up to the light, looking for “secret” watermarks.  We gripe about how dull our monochrome money is, despite the portraits getting their facelifts.  I still have Irish coin from when we went to Ireland for our honeymoon. I kept it in hopes we’d go back someday.  Who knew they’d completely change currency?  They’ll make nice charms.

Now the fun part.

I look up things to do in Dublin, make a list and add restaurants.  I probably won’t go to any of them, preferring to be inspired by serendipity, but it provides a good starting point.

And then, there’s the “travel wardrobe.”  My husband doesn’t understand, but I’m pretty sure most women do.  It’s like preparing for the first day of school. A fresh travel wardrobe is about making a good impression, putting a best foot forward, creating a fantasy.

“You’re not going to see these people again, in fact, you’re not even going to really be meeting anyone at all,” my husband says. 

There's more to Ireland than Guinness and craic.  At least,
that's what people tell me.

“True, but that makes it all the more important to make a good impression,” I say.

In a strange way, because I know I won’t be seeing any of these people again, a vacation wardrobe grants creative leeway in my sartorial selection.  Vacation attire (not to be confused with “resort wear”) allows me to project a fantasy image of who I would like to be during that time – someone who doesn’t have to worry about muddy paws, potential dog bites, and dog treat bags. 

I check the weather for Dublin.  Not surprisingly, it’s cold and rainy.

I opt for the spending-the-week-at-the-country-manor look:  sweaters, boots, my overcoat, scarves, tweed and cashmere.  I don’t want to scream tourist, but it’s not like I can blend with the native population any way.  Still, I’ve traveled enough to know that tennis shoes, especially white tennis shoes, baseball caps and shorts are typically American. I can also spot German tourists, especially male German tourists. 

“What you should do is pack really old stuff,” my husband says.  “That way you can throw it out after you’ve worn it so it you’ll have more room in your luggage for souvenirs on the way back.”

I stare at him.  It makes complete sense, but it’s a disturbing image.  Somehow, borderline homeless never figured into the wardrobe fantasy.

That’s really what vacation is about, isn’t it?  Fantasy?  It’s not just the clothing, but the lifestyle as well, staying in hotels, eating out, exploring, living a life of leisure.  In a way, vacations also give our imagination a break.  That’s what makes vacations magical.  They  make our dreams reality.

Sarong, Farewell

Island vacations are great ... depending on the island.

“We should go on a cruise,” my husband announces.

 “Yeeeeahhhhh, no,” I respond.

My husband can see I’m already a little green around the gills.  Despite several successful trips on the Catalina ferry many, many, years ago, my last couple seafaring journeys resulted in me orally chumming the sharks.

“You could wear those ear patch things,” he says.

I hate being nauseous and the thought of being potentially nauseous for days is not an alluring thought.

“My sister says they totally work,” my husband assures me.

O.k.  It’s not like he’s going to book a cruise today, so I’ll play along.

“Where would you want to go?” I ask.

“Well, what about the Caribbean ...?”

My nose wrinkles.

“Or the Bahamas?” he suggests, but already his shoulders are drooping.  “Greece?” he adds meekly to my ever more crinkling face.  “Alright then, where would you want to go?”

“The Baltic?” I suggest, and his face drops.  “Alaska?”

“Those places are freezing,” he says, as if I didn’t know.

As if he didn’t know.

I hate hot weather and by hot, I mean anything over seventy degrees Fahrenheit.  I’d like to say it’s a hormonal thing, but I’ve never enjoyed sunbathing nor fantasized about tropical vacations.  I always preferred temperate or cold climates, although snow is not a necessity.  I like to think it’s in my blood.  None of my ethnic genes drops below 34^th parallel, which isn’t as cold as I thought (who knew Hiroshima and Los Angeles were at the same latitude?  The axis threw me off.), but still it’s out of the tropics.  And it doesn’t matter if it’s a “dry heat” or not.  Hot is hot.  It’s just a question of whether I feel like I’m melting or if my skin is shriveling away like an overdone turkey.

My general rule is that I can always add more clothing when it’s cold.  I only briefly experienced “seriously” cold weather (0°F at the airport in Toronto), so I can’t attest to the cold weather lifestyle.  But as far as heat goes, I can only take so much off, and once the weather hits eighty, I’m at that limit.  The day we moved into our current home, it was 114°F and it stayed that way for two weeks.  I was beside myself, especially when the rolling black outs hit.  Uber Hundus and I spent the days confined to one room, the portable air conditioner turned up to 11.  We moved to Northern California for cooler weather.  Who knew one little tunnel could make such a huge difference?  Granted, the winters were colder here than in San Francisco, but I’d compromise for cooler summers.  Thankfully, global warming has done that and the last two summers didn’t see any days over 105°F, and even the hottest days were scattered.  Sorry, polar bears.

It's not just the rolls of "belly fat" that are making me frown.

A more temperate climate is probably why I enjoy the coast.  I like the ocean at winter, when the water turns cold iron grey and the strand is nearly deserted except for the hardcore surfers.   Growing up, it was the rolling fog and distant moan of fog horns that lured me to the beach, not the scent of coconut oil and fried corn dogs.  Beach communities, especially port cities, tend to be a little more tolerant of eccentricities as well, perhaps because they’re accustomed to the variety of people and items that the sea trade brings.  That’s important to someone who looks like an outsider in most areas.

I did actually vacation in Hawaii once, on a paid holiday with my husband.  That’s when I confirmed my suspicions.  While my husband laid out by the water sucking down various umbrella drinks and taking the occasional stroll into the bath temperature ocean, I sought refuge in the jungle, hoping it was cooler, momentarily forgetting that the lack of sea breeze meant swarms of mosquitos would be there to greet me. I returned reeking of DEET applied too late to prevent the multitude of bites on my legs.  From then on, it was hopping from shop to shop, hoping to find air conditioning among the Maui dirt dyed t-shirts. 

That was enough for me.  Having grown up among palm trees and sandy beaches, it didn’t seem like much of an escape to go somewhere else with palm trees and sandy beaches, especially if there's also added heat.  I did, however, fall madly in love with coconut syrup.  Tropical food is delicious.  I’d just rather have it imported.

That doesn’t mean island vacations are off the list.  I’ve visited Newfoundland three times and loved every minute of it.  I’m dying to explore Nova Scotia, especially during the Celtic Colors.  I love Ireland and the UK. I look forward to visiting Iceland and its ponies one day.  The Shetlands would be interesting for the same reason.  There’s even the scattered islands that help make up Denmark.  Locally, I’d like to see the Farallons.  In my fantasy life, we’d spend half the year in New Zealand, strategically timed so that I could live in perpetual fall and winter.

 Yes, I’m definitely an Island Girl.  It’s just that on my islands, sarongs are so wrong.

The Void of Possibilities

The Honeymoon Bowl

Dao – The balance of opposites.  A bowl cannot exist unless it has a substance and emptiness

When my husband and I got married almost 15 years ago, my mother gave me some money specifically to buy a souvenir of our honeymoon in Ireland.

 
“Don’t get junk.  Get something special,” she’d said in her chiding tone as she handed me an envelope of cash.

What to get that both of us would enjoy?  The obvious tourist shops were out.  A keg of Guinness would only last a month or so, Jameson’s not much longer.  I’m fond of antiques so that seemed like a logical place to start.  Budget aside, nothing caught my attention and my husband quickly (but politely) got tired of going into the shops with me.  Since I thought the search should be a joint agreement, those hunting ventures ended.

 When we went to Kylemore Abbey, there was a pottery shop nearby.  Pottery?  Most Irish pottery (not fine china), is decorated with stamping.  A little too rustic for our taste.  But I do like handmade.   One group of pottery caught our eye.  The glaze was emerald green, and all the ware had rune-like patterns carved into the clay.  We both liked the look and portability wasn’t a problem.  The question was what type of pottery?  Tea pot?  Neither of us drank tea.  Platter? Hm.  Bowl?

The bowl got my vote, although it would be more difficult to transport.  My husband wanted the platter.

 
“But a bowl has so many possibilities,” I argued, a more esoteric view starting to come into focus.  “It can be used to hold fruit, Christmas ornaments, flowers …”

“So, it’s more practical,” my husband said.  “We’ll use it more?”
 
My husband is left-brained.  I’m not.

“Yes … no,” I vacillated.  “It could be.” 

 
Despite not totally understanding me, my husband agreed to purchase the bowl.  This is why I married him.
 
Then, after returning home, he did the verboten.  He put fruit in the bowl.

“You can’t put fruit in that bowl,” I said.

“Why not?  It’s not being used for anything else.” He compared the bunch of bananas to the bowl.  “It fits.”

“But then it’ll be a fruit bowl,” I explained.

 
Blank expression.

The forgotten and neglected Christmas ball bowl.

“If it’s the fruit bowl, we’ll always put fruit in it,” I clarified.

 
Blank expression turned to puzzled look.  “So, what do we put in it then?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Nothing?”

 
“Yes.  Nothing.”

I emptied the bowl, wiped it clean, and returned it to the coffee table.  I put the fruit in another bowl.  I can’t begin to explain the expression on his face at that point.

“So, what was the point in getting that bowl?” he asked.  “Didn’t you say that it could be used to hold fruit, Christmas ornaments, flowers …?”

“But, that’s the whole point,” I said.  “It could be used for a multitude of things.  The possibilities are endless.”

“Then, why aren’t we using it for a multitude of things?”

“Because then the possibilities would be gone,” I said.  “It would be the fruit bowl or the flower bowl or, heaven forbid, the potpourri bowl.”

We both shuddered at that thought.

“When it’s empty, anything is possible,” I concluded with some satisfaction.

I don’t know that he understood me, but he did the excellent husband thing and nodded and let it go.

When my friends first started to get married, I usually bought picture frames.  Partly because I was on a limited budget, partly because it was practical since they would have wedding pictures.  I also liked the idea of capturing and treasuring memories.  I was a history major, after all. 

After the “honeymoon bowl,” I changed my point of view.  I was never big on taking or displaying photos.  Frequently, I’m just too distracted to remember to take a picture.  But looking at possibilities?  I’m always doing that.

Since then, as designated gift purchaser for weddings, I’ve bought bowls.  What better way to start a new life together than considering all the possibilities.

The last wedding we went to was for Doug’s cousin.  Because they’re a young couple, we got their bridal registry.  We were standing in the middle of Pottery Barn perusing the list.

“Look,” my husband said, reading over my shoulder.  “There’s a bowl.”

Grasshopper has learned well.

“Are you sure you don’t want to get the martini glasses?” I asked, half-joking.

“We can get those and the bowl,” he said with a smile.

Cocktails and possibilities.  Not a bad way to start a married life.