A Tall Girl's Adventures in a Tiny World

I'm sitting on a park bench in New York City, overlooking 42nd Street just east of Grand Central Station, waiting for the bus that will take me home from a lovely girlfriend getaway in Manhattan. Right now it's an unseasonable 62 degrees and sunny; yesterday it was windy, rainy, and just above freezing temps. Kids are playing in a nearby playground. Folks are out in t-shirts and sunglasses walking dogs. Colleagues in suits are lunching on nearby benches. Everyone seems relaxed, smiling, happy to be outside on a Wednesday in February. Like we're all sneaking one past Mother Nature; even the birds are snickering. Everything is fine and beautiful. Then I pick up my iPhone, check Instagram -- which is usually a fairly neutral, politics-free social media space -- and I see posts about high school students walking out of class in protest, Elizabeth Warren voted into silence on the Senate floor, President Trump talking about terror attacks in Sweden that never actually happened,...

“Imagine this, buddy, in the middle of summer, especially near the Fourth of July. Wall to wall people, just sort of moving in and out of each other. Flashing lights. Loud music. Screams from Morey’s Pier, laughter on the swirly rides. Oh...and the food...ice cream, funnel cake, fudge, cheese steaks, pizza, fries...the smells alone would drive you nuts!”  Our empty, rainy October boardwalk It’s 5:00 on the evening before his Nana’s funeral, and we’re standing in a windy drizzle on an empty Wildwood boardwalk. My mind has flashed back to the summer of 1991, when I spent a week here with my best friend. Wicked sunburn. Tandem bike adventures. Water slides. Thrill rides. A ground-shaking thunderstorm. Friendship bracelets. College guys taking showers outside. Ice cream and VCR movies every night. Back in the here-and-now I’m trying to explain to Zippy what this place is like when it’s not October. He’s been to Rehoboth and Ocean City and Old Orchard Beach, but none of those...

Tank tops by day, hoodies by night  Air so rich with strawberry smells that you stop smack in the middle of the Monument Square farmers market and giggle; the "tomato bar" in late August elicits the same response Arms stained tie-dye red-purple-orange from the popcicles you slurp on the front porch; the house won't cool down until the sun sets  Slow weekend mornings -- cold brew coffee, a book, a blanket, a patch of grass overlooking the sailboat-dotted harbor Gigantic 10-story cruise ships, teeming streets, no parking spaces, buskers on every corner, impossibly long restaurant waits, a people-watching bonanza Seagulls brazenly eyeing your fries as you pick apart lobsters the rocks at Two Lights Lobster Shark, laughing as the butter and salt water ooze down our forearms Clouds that build and blow through a deep blue sky, mirrored in the lake we're floating on; reach your head back far enough, and it's easy to lose the distinction between water and sky. ...

My mind drifts across Scarborough Marsh. No to do list. No schedule to keep. No children chattering. I’m alone. Sunshine on my face. Wind in my hair. Nothing between me and the sea but a bright red plastic shell. Nothing to focus on but this paddle in my hands. Paddle left. Paddle right. Paddle left. Pull the water with your waist. Suck in your tummy. Paddle right. Keep your back straight. Push your feet into the foot wells. Paddle left. Paddle right. Oh we’re moving now. Into the wind. Over the chop. Paddle right. Cross the current. Paddle left. Use your back, not just your arms. Paddle right. Paddle left. Pull. Pull. Pull. Pull. The tide is coming up. There’s more wind today than usual. The bow of the boat bounces over the choppy waves. My hat blows off. The laminated map on a lanyard around my neck whips my cheeks. Why do they give me this map anyway? It’s not like there’s much more than some twisting branches of water between marsh grass, a bridge, the sea. I can’t see bey...

I am never more aware of the size of my body as I am when I fly. Especially now that I live in a small city and often have to travel on smaller planes. From the minute I step aboard, ducking my head just to make it through the door, hunched as I walk to my seat, I feel every eye on me. The flight attendants generally give me the sad-sorry eyes first, then the true awkwardness begins. My head rubs the ceiling as I squish myself down the aisle. I pull my arms across my body, hugging my backpack for comfort, and feel the hairs on my head standing up from the static. Or maybe my hair stands up from sensing the anxiety of every person I pass? "You've got to be kidding. Don't you dare sit next to me!" their eyes shout. Some look right in my face, as if willing me away psychically. Others look down or fiddle with the seatback pocket; if they ignore me, don't face their fear of having to share with the giant, then I won't possibly take over their armrest. Usually th...

Can you believe it's September? How did this happen? Astounding! I'm sure you were off enjoying your summer and hardly noticed that I haven't been here since June (yipes!), but we have some catching up to do. I'll try to bring you up to speed on the summer that was 2011, the high points, at least. A good snuggle after camp June-August: Happy goes to YMCA summer camp and loves it. Well, all except for Color Wars week...which Happy really hates but Mommy really loves. (Have you ever run as far as you can while screaming, like a human javelin? It's fun. Try it.) Every day he comes home exhausted and ready for a snuggle. Hometown 4th of July parade Birthday bash #2 July: We spend the 4th of July with our Besties -- then Mommy, Happy, and Zippy have a week off, which includes a trip to Ocean City, a trip to the Delaware Museum of Natural History , a day at the pool, and a birthday party weekend extravaganza (four parties in three days, two of which are in ...

The first trip Big Daddy and I ever took together, way back on Memorial Day weekend in 1997, was a camping weekend in Williamsburg, Virginia. We stayed in a KOA Kabin, and we both remember it as the weekend we fell in love for real. Sappy, yes. We were married three Memorial Days later. What better way to celebrate our 11th anniversary than by taking our kids to the place we fell in love? Well, actually, in hindsight, I can think of about 100 better ways to celebrate our anniversary weekend...live and learn. We learned a few other things this weekend, which we will forever call our Williamsburg Camping Adventure 2011: (1) Be wary of any campground that purposefully spells its name with a K. As in Kampground. The only nice thing I can say about this particular KOA is that the bathrooms were remarkably klean. Which is a big deal, really, to anyone who's camped in any number of state parks around the country. But there is no privacy. At all. The kampsites are shoe-horned i...

I was bitten by the travel bug early in life. And I love a good road trip much, much more than a trip by plane or train. Because my parents were both teachers, we spent most of every summer road-tripping around the country -- mostly camping because teachers don't get paid in the summer (at least they didn't 20 years ago), and camping is cheap. We had a giant green "maxi van" when I was in grade school that my mom rigged up like a camper. (This pic isn't the actual van, but it looked a lot like this.) She built a double bed for her and my dad in the far back, fashioned a little cot for me that fit over the two front seats, and my brother sacked out in the middle bench. There was room enough behind the far-back seat to fit a cooler and a giant box of nonperishables, and the camp stove and tarps and gear fit in boxes under the seats. My mom was super-crafty and innovative. And we saw many of these United States from the inside of Sam van Green. (This was before my si...

Well, no, I'm not really leaving, and not really today...but I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps. Big Daddy's birthday is coming up in about a month, and I'd like to take him away for a weekend. (Can you believe we've not been away together, as a couple sans child, for more than a few hours in over 3 years?!) I asked him where he wants to go -- didn't give him any of my own ideas because I want him to pick a special place for him -- and he replied "Let's go to New York. For a full weekend. Just us. We always talk about it, but we never do it." Woo-hoo! This is a fabulous idea, sweet cheeks! And I realized this morning that it was 10 years ago in November that Big Daddy proposed to me -- in a beautiful restaurant overlooking Times Square. So it's not only going to be a birthday celebration, but an Us celebration as well. But now comes the hard part...planning and execution of the romantic getaway weekend... Here's what I'm thinking...

I'm sitting here at 11:30 pm, the last night in Bar Harbor. Everyone's asleep. Sweet Boy looked at me in the car on the way back to the house, after I asked him to stay awake until we got home, "but I had such a good day, and I'm so tired, I want to just sleep a little bit here." Gotcha, kiddo. I feel the same way. It was a good day, and I'm so tired. But I don't really want to go to sleep because when I wake up, vacation will be over. And we were just starting to have fun! (Not to mention, I don't even want to think about the 14-hour car ride...oh, my aching back.) Today was the best weather day we've had all week, so we crammed in as much of Acadia as we could handle. Which really wasn't much, but it was good for us: Cadillac Mountain summit, Otter Point, Otter Cove, a quick drive around the Park Loop road, then into Somesville to visit the Port in the Storm bookstore (which we've driven by hundreds of times before, and I always say I wan...

Of course the morning that I had the most fun this whole week, I didn't take my camera. But it's ok! Because I stopped often and said "Self, remember this moment and lock it away." Sweet Boy and I got up early this morning and headed down to Bar Harbor, just the two of us and the jogging stroller and our raincoats, to walk on Shore Path. The fog was so thick that not only could you not see more than, oh, 30 feet ahead of you, but the air was actually wet. Serious downeast Maine weather. I love it. Shore Path is exactly that: A mile-long path that ambles from the pier in Bar Harbor all along the shoreline. You pass the Bar Harbor Inn, which is a place I will stay someday after I write my bestselling novel and have lots and lots of money, and you walk by some amazing waterfront mansions. (This is a place with serious old money. The Rockefellers actually funded most if not all of Acadia's infrastructure before it was a National Park.) The best part of this trail is n...

Wednesday was a good day...once I got through my meltdown over the turtle walk being full. Don't ask; I'm hoping that memory melts away. Let's just say, sometimes while trying to keep your father, your son, and your husband all happy at the same time, your own happiness gets sacrificed. (But I'm preaching to the choir, I'm sure!) Around mid-afternoon, I hiked down to our family's little tidal pool spot, near Blackwoods Campground and across from Otter Point, with my brother and my dad. It's a place that my family has been visiting since my mother and her brothers were children, and although we have many happy memories there, we also have some sad ones, too. This is the place we scattered my mother's ashes 11 years ago, so it's a bittersweet sojourn that we make every time we're here in Acadia. We don't have a headstone to visit, which is the way my mom wanted it to be, so this is the next best thing, I suppose. Honestly, my brother and I didn...

I woke up this morning to the most rain falling from the sky as I've ever seen. And it's cold. Not exactly January-cold, but certainly not August-warm. Probably won't get out of the 60s today, and the rain is supposed to continue on. And on. And on. Which is harrowing to this mommy of an active 3-year-old...what the heck are we going to do today? Yesterday was a good day, all in all, though we really didn't do very much. And it's looking like we won't be doing much today, either. But then I ask myself, why do you have to do stuff constantly when on vacation? Ah. You see. This is the conundrum of this entire week. I'm vacationing with my father, who cannot sit still, ever. (My dad wants also to re-create good memories...I'll get to that another time.) And my husband, who really only wants to sit still, always. Throw in a child who needs constant stimulation, yet still naps in the afternoon, and you've got yourself one crazy vacation stew. To me the pe...

Monday morning we were slow getting out the door. But we finally made it into Acadia N.P. around 11:00. Cloudy skies and fog made for poor visibility off the coast, but the rain held off and the air stayed warmish, so we made a go. First stop, as always, Thunder Hole, a groovy little outcropping of rocks that gets its name because about an hour before high tide, the waves crash into it so hard you can hear the boom from about 500 yards away (not because of it's flatulence after a spicy meal, as my husband would want you to believe). Oh, and it splashes pretty nicely, which was a hit when we were kids. (I found a video post on YouTube that shows what it should look like, if you watch toward the end. Don't be scared, though, or think I'm a horrible parent for taking my kid down there. We were there at low tide on a fairly clear day, so the rocks off to the left of the stairs were all uncovered. And there were no big boomer waves.) Thunder Hole has been neatly cordoned off wi...

We drove for about 8 hours from New Bedford to Bar Harbor, Maine , yesterday -- me, Big Daddy, Sweet Boy, and Voo...and all our luggage, swimsuits, groceries, DVD player, Playstation, laptop, toys, jogging stroller, chairs, tennis rackets, and hiking shoes. (I swear that car-top carrier that I bought off Craigslist is the best $25 I ever spent!) By the time we arrived, I think we were all done with togetherness for a while...but we rallied long enough to eat at Pancho Villa's down in town. I have been dreaming of their tableside guacamole since last summer. We're here in Maine, in a rented house outside Acadia National Park, for a week. I'm hopping online now to do some research to find things to do that we've never done before...which will be hard to do because I've been coming here every few years with my family since before I could speak. This is the first time I'll be here with a 3yo boy, though, so I hope to find some new adventures to share with him. Since...

Well, here I sit, in a mediocre hotel room in Massachusetts, awaiting our dinner-date with my aunt and cousins. After about 8 hours in the car with my dad, husband, and son, I'm grateful for a little quiet time with my dear friend, Laptop. Hello, Laptop, how I've longed for your glow. I can't believe this place with the water-stained walls, the basement-musty smelling a/c unit, and the burn holes in the bedcovers has complimentary wireless, but I'm thrilled. Also thrilled that there's a pool in which Big Daddy and Sweet Boy can play a little while. Ahh...quiet. This evening we'll be in New Bedford , my dad's hometown nicknamed "the whaling city" because it was once home to the whaling industry. (It's the city that inspired Moby Dick, which I have never read, but its full text lives on the web, so I really should check it out one of these days.) New Bedford is a working class city right on the water, between Boston and Cape Cod, with rich ethni...