How Are You Feeling About Your Trip?
(c)Melanie Parish, 2013
Question: How are you feeling about your trip?
Anonymous
Answer: I am feeling unsettled about our trip. I am feeling excited, wound up, a little bit edged. I am feeling a strange longing for the warm, bursting-with-flavor summer in Ontario. I saw a farm crawl advertised yesterday for this weekend and I wanted to go on it. In some alternate universe I could be on the farm crawl and be in Iceland. I could be both swimming in my backyard pool and wine tasting in France. I am excited about going and yet feel a small sense of loss about missing the beauty of the Ontario summer.
We will be in Iceland on Friday and I can’t wait. I think it will be raining
Five weeks feels like a long time and I know it will fly by. I will want to live in Paris and Copenhagen. I am curious about Sweden. I will want to buy a vacation property in the south of France–I know I will want to. I always do. I always dream of returning to the places I go. I am looking forward to driving around the countryside in the places we visit. Road trip!
Packing for such a long trip is a challenge. I have to let go of things that make my life comfortable at home in order to go on this trip. Part of the vacation is releasing the things I love and being on an adventure, like allowing our house-sitter to care for our home and property without worrying about it. That said, I am pretty committed to taking my bread knife and cutting board with us. We have had many conversations with friends in the last few weeks about my bread knife and cutting board. I gather insights about how our friends travel from their opinions about my bread knife and cutting board. Some think bringing a cutting board and knife is a great idea, others can’t imagine why I would want it at all. Some think I should buy one while I am there. I can see whether we share similar values or have different values by their responses to my knife and cutting board. We have talked about it so much because Mel has been teasing me about over-packing and these have become a symbol of the joke.
For me, they are freedom. If I have a knife and a cutting board I can cut fruit or salami or cheese. I can buy the quintessential Parisian baguette and slice it in a park. I am versatile and we can slide them into a backpack. They honor my values of eating local, high quality food and of being thrifty. I have values about maximizing and competence and I am sure these are honored, too.
Other things I am taking besides clothes:
- Exercise band with a little strap that goes over a door–courtesy of my amazing trainer Suzanne
- A French phrase book (Lonely Planet)
- Rick Steve’s France Guidebook
- A corkscrew
- A tiny cooler
- Stuff for the kids to do to help them practice their reading and writing in French
- Clif Bars, nuts, wraps for the plane to avoid $100 in bad airport food on our first travel day
- Laptop
- Phone
- Umbrella
- Empty water bottle to fill up after security
Mel and I have been married for 10 years and we didn’t go on a honeymoon when we got married. This is our honeymoon. We have been talking about what being on a honeymoon means at this stage of our marriage. For us it means the same things as it does for newlyweds–connection, intimacy, romance. But we are taking our children on our honeymoon. Somehow that feels right. They are part of our lives together. They are a tie that binds us closer together than any ceremony. We are their mom and dad. Kind of like salt and pepper. We go together. So for us it makes sense to take the kids on the honeymoon.
I am feeling good about my trip. I am full of excitement and exploration and I can’t wait for our journey. I have worked hard this year and I am ready to slow down and wander.
