jedimentat

So, we went on vacation.

We had been to Maine and small outings but not on an airplane since a trip to Denver to see family four years ago (Kirk was 3!), and certainly had not been anywhere in 2+ years. So it was a big deal. The pandemic is winding down, or in a lull, kids and adults are vaxxed, and a long dark winter was coming to a close. We scheduled this trip last summer, when things were reasonably good, and with Omicron and BA2 variant and other things still going on in February it felt kind of iffy and weird to leave home, but we decided to get away anyway. It's been a long time coming and felt almost unreal.

On a personal level, it felt like terrible timing to go away as Russia attacked Ukraine; the attack came on Thursday, and our departure was Saturday, and it's been eleven days of war as I write this, with Russia basically trying to genocide my ancestral homeland with its takeover and attack on cities and civilians with terrible destruction. I don't have close family in Ukraine; my great grandparents were the ones who immigrated and my grandparents didn't have any close contacts after World War II. But my grandparents (and my mom) were 100% Ukrainian; my grandfather was extremely active in the 1990s collecting hospital equipment through the Ukrainian American Veteran Association and sending shipping containers of it back to a very austere, needy Ukraine, and helped people emigrate successfully. I know what he and my grandmother would say about this attack, and how fierce they would be. Seeing how desperate the situation is, and how everyday people are battling for their lives, is brutal.

The attack weighed heavily on my heart while we were away, but I tried to limit myself and not read the news until bedtime. I'm not trying to be glib or heartless or self-absorbed; at this point in my life, I am really, really good at compartmentalizing, shutting down some emotions and fronting for my kids, and I have to say that these events didn't wreck this vacation on a scale that other, more personal ones have wrecked a vacation in the past. But it was all happening and in the back of my mind, as we shook off the winter and had this week of joy as a family.

We left for Newark Airport at 4 am for an early flight to Chicago, and from there to Cozumel, Mexico. At this point in time, there were no vaccine or testing restrictions to get to Mexico or the resort, just to return home. We all double-masked on both plane rides, and it still felt pretty gross, and we definitely spent more $ than I usually would in order to not share a shuttle, take a private tour, etc, in terms of germs. The hotel staff was required to be masked, so we masked when in contact with them, although many other guests did not. At the all-inclusive hotel, there was no trappings of the pandemic world for the most part; it was like an alternate reality. Eating at a (thankfully open-air) buffet, drinking at a bar, swimming with others in a pool...it felt pretty strange at times.

I've always felt embarrassed and disappointed by a lot of American tourist behavior, which is often ill-mannered, deliberately ignorant, culturally insensitive, and selfish, but it felt worse in this post-MAGA world; we definitely shook our heads and exchanged glances over Boomers dismissively throwing a dollar at a staff member and acting like it was amazing largesse; over obese tourist bodies clad head-to-toe in khaki and thin blue line gear. I'm never comfortable being served by other human beings, and an all-inclusive luxury resort seems to bring out some really piggish behavior as people scramble to load their plates and 'get their money's worth.' On arrival, I gave a pointed lecture to the kids about how the food available at the buffet was a legit feast to local people who work here; how much money and resources it took to get food and supplies like that to the island and how it wasn't reflective of how local people lived on the day to day, and how they should only take what they could eat and not waste food. ((I am a really, really fun person, let me tell you)). The kids were very conscious of that and very respectful and made good choices and were extremely polite and also practiced speaking the words of Spanish that they knew at every opportunity, so I was very proud of them.

All that being said, pandemic and tourist conditions and judgy mom-lectures aside, we lived in paradise for a week. The hotel was five star; absolutely gorgeous. It had a towering expansive lobby with a thatched roof and resident parrot; it had multiple dining halls with incredible food offerings, fresh fruits and a variety of Mexican and other cuisines; it had a footbridge over a flamingo pond, where people would linger and observe the flamingoes in all their behavioral glory; there was no towering hotel block but rather charming individual charming bungalow suites in bright colors, with a twining 'jungle' path lined with all sorts of palms and tropical foliage...truly it was a plant-lover's paradise; tropical palms of every shape and size, it was amazing. There were blackbirds with trilling calls, and coatimundis (like raccoons but cooler) running everywhere; peacocks strolling who would eat out of your hand and show up outside your sliding door, peering in.