Summer Travels
Apricot is barking and Dante is pruning the bushes. You are listening to a Curious George audio book and practicing your letters. I am drinking coffee and reading a poem by Mark Strand. Mom is upstairs getting ready for the day. It is a Wednesday morning and we are back in California after our trip. It was good to be away, and now it’s good to be home. You saw Nana in New Jersey and then we went to New York for a wedding in Brooklyn. With Nana, you went to the community garden and the Chester area pool and the playground and we watched live music at the municipal field. At her house, you did puzzles and baked cookies and watched Star Wars and fed the fish and gave Rusty hugs. You saw fireflies for the first time. You kept talking on Nana’s landline phone and telling us that Darth Vader was calling, but you said he was “talking nonsense.” We met your godmother at the diner, where she stopped on her way to the shore. Then Nana drove us into the city. For forty-five minutes you asked if we were at the tunnel yet. We finally got to Lincoln Tunnel and you were in awe. We said goodbye to Nana and checked into our hotel by Central Park.
In New York, you rode in your first taxi, and you kept looking for other taxis everywhere we went, calling out “Taxi!” whenever you saw one. We walked around Central Park and we visited the Central Park Zoo and saw a grizzly bear and a lemur and penguins and sea lions and a red panda and a snow monkey. We could not seem to find the snow leopard. We went to Kyle and Dan’s wedding and you loved the traditional Chinese lion dance. We took photos by the Brooklyn Bridge. You feel asleep in the car ride home. We all slept in the big bed in our room on the top floor of the hotel.
The trip home was a nightmare but you were somehow upbeat throughout the ordeal. First we sat on the plane for 7 hours on the runway at Newark, while thunderstorms came in and lighting struck all around us. Then the plane went back to the gate and we all got off and for a long while no one knew what was happening. Then the plane was re-routed to LAX instead of Santa Ana. People all around us couldn’t believe how calm and happy and well-behaved you were the whole time. You were more patient than me and mom. The flight finally took off after midnight. You slept on the plane. I watched some of Casablanca and listened to Aimee Mann and tried to sleep. We landed in the middle of the night in Los Angeles and there was a bus waiting to take the passengers to Orange County. But the bus filled up before you, me, and Mom could get on and they told us, too bad, take a taxi. But the taxis would not accept our voucher. So finally we got a Lyft and we picked up our car at the Santa Ana airport.
As we were driving back to our house, we praised you yet again for being so great on the trip, and you said, “I was trying to make you both feel better.” I just about lost it then. We walked through our door at 5:30 am. We all slept in the big bed for a few hours then we went to pick up Apricot, who was so happy to see us. We all missed her very much.
Mom and I are proud and impressed and grateful for you and how you handled this trip, from start to finish. You were excited, open, curious, upbeat, and patient. You were a calming presence. It was truly remarkable for a three-year-old child. But then again, you are always remarkable, in so many ways. More travels to come, later in the summer...