Vacation Meditation - Show & Tell #45

Wrote this earlier this week, but its got lots of showin' and tellin'....

It has become a tradition for me to re-read “The Time Traveller’s Wife”* while I am vacationing on Cape Cod. Part of this is because I love the book and it is so big (and hardbound, so it is so bulky) that the only time I have a good chunk of time to read it is during our vacation.

But I think that part of me likes the past/present/future time travel element to it during my vacation. Going on a traditional long vacation each year in the summer is like time travel. I get the same kind of feeling I have during the holiday season. Something new, something old. Remembrances of times past come seeping in. The past/present and future is right there and you can sense it and feel it.

Going away for the summer, remembering being a little girl and anticipating our drive to Indiana to my grandparents house for a week (sometimes 2). Sometimes I remember those vacations while doing things with my children, so very far away from Indiana and the Midwest. At the beach, I can remember Lake Michigan as a little girl. I remember digging my feet into the sand and kicking and digging out hills and holes with my feet. I watch my son do the same thing right in front of me in Provincetown. I can imagine my daughter doing the same thing next year.

My son's french fries look and smell similar to the ones I used to eat in a small soda shop in Indiana; the wonder of picking up small living creatures and showing them to my daughter reminds me of times I used to catch garter snakes and crawdads and lightning bugs.

I think of the recent past.

The times we came here as just a couple. Having moved 800 miles away from family and friends. Having little money but still wanting time on vacation. We went to Bed & Breakfasts and found the ocean and low tides with creatures lying on the rutted sand like a museum display. We rode bikes along the ocean and we found ourselves as adults.

I spent time with just my four year old son (dad had to go back to work early) and we went in bumper boats (I was scared to death--he was in a bumper boat by himself, while I was in another bumper boat). This year my son and I did a motorized Go Kart.

Feeling the present. Wanting it to last. Wanting my life to just PAUSE in the moment. To enjoy the sea breeze and sunset. To enjoy Willow seeing waves crashing. Michael wading in the ocean and being 20 yards away from a seal.

I want to write down what we did, but I know that it is inadequate. Memories and time are fluid and even now this vacation is becoming part of the past, part of the passage of time that sometimes makes us forget. All I can do is merely journal notes and post pictures so that my mind can remember.

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(Pretty somber, eh?!) Okay, enough of that...here's some places we went and stuff we did...

When we first got there, we went to one of our favorite seafood restaurants and had some good ole fried seafood:



The next day we went to Martha's Vineyard. We found these Ginger Houses that we did not even know about...even though we have went to the Vineyard many times before.



This was also where Willow decided to keep working on her shoe fascination. She took off her shoes and found some abandoned flip flops.



Later, Michael engaged in one of the favorite things to do on Cape Cod--eat ice cream--on a carousel figure!



Another day we went to Eastham.

We had pizza and pasta at the Red Barn and played video games and mini-golf.

Willow liked the pasta...



One day it did rain...


I love this picture. It has so many colors I like and embodies my son in so many ways...

But, we went to a paint your own pottery place and have mementos of our time there...



And, the next day, it was beautiful and we went to the beach again...



Amongst the things we did: laughed, played, got sand everywhere (hey, did you know that sand can be digested? imagine that in a diaper!). We watched boats and ships; we went on a ferry, we played mini-golf more than once--and Willow liked to take our balls off the green and run away with them...we had fun and time together as a family. I am glad for it.

Now, back to regularly scheduled life.


Show & Tell exclusive: Extra Picture--a blue and red lobster!



* No, I did not go to see the movie. Had the opportunity to go to the drive in to see it, but the reviews sounded like it sucked. I will probably see it on the cheap. I hate it when they screw up books!


Click to see who else is Showing & Telling.