By Stephanie K. Hopkins
“What is it that people want from vacation?” I ask my Boo, as we unfurl our beach towels and let the sun wash over us. “I mean, what are we after?”
This is a short vacation; we have brought our ambitious, goal-oriented selves to an island off the Puerto Rico mainland for a few days. I’m pressuring myself to have a clear goal out of fear that the days will go by too quickly and at the end of our stay, I will have missed something. Should I practice being in the present moment? Should I try to capture as many moments as I can in writing? Should I post pictures on Facebook incessantly so I know that this vacation is really happening? Should I seek adventure? Or should I relish little things like making coffee in the sun-lit kitchen?
These are funny questions, I know. They are the antithesis-of-vacation questions, but it takes awhile to get into the groove. Travel is never perfect: instead of packing ahead of time, we stay up late and drink too much and get two hours sleep; in a wee hour, we stuff who-knows-what into our suitcases and hope for the best; we are late for take-off; my Boo is stressed and I absorb her stress, then stress her out my from own stress. It’s too late to check luggage, so I have to leave precious toiletries behind and shamefully, because I am so tired, I cry. A healthy dose of Klonopin settles us down for the plane, and we are like drowsy sheep as we make our way from airport to ferry via an hour-long taxi ride. Every time we sit anywhere we nod off like narcoleptics, heads tipped together like a human tent.
It’s a two-hour wait for the ferry and we sit on a concrete bench with our luggage, which is now clearly, grotesquely, too much, nodding our sleep-deprived, Klonopin-dosed heads until we finally board the ferry for an hour and half trip. The ride is rocky and my Boo’s tummy tumbles around like clothes in a dryer, and it’s my fault because I couldn’t bring myself to board the miniature plane that would have had us on the beach in under half an hour.
I spend much of the ferry ride—at least the parts I’m awake for—convincing myself she would be happier without me, and I wonder how long it would take for me to swim to the mainland were I to jump ship. What I would do after that, with my salt-parched skin and no lotion to quench it, doesn’t occur to me.
Eventually, mercifully, we arrive. Two Medallas await us at the local seaside bar, which is just as we left it three years ago—relaxed crowd, small library of books, darts, balcony overlooking sleeping boats—and like a beer commercial, the pssst of the tab melts us.
We find the beach by way of jeep. My Boo navigates the vehicle with the skill of a professional bull rider over what feels like the surface of the moon. If I resist the bouncing, I get tense and irritated. So I lift both feet off the floor and hold my arms in the air and go limp and let the jeep toss me around. This loosens something in me and I can’t stop giggling. A path through the coconut palms, and we are there.
There couldn’t be a more perfect beach. Sun and a breeze to temper its heat. Soft, salty waves. Only a handful of people. The water is warm enough for my Boo to venture in. I float until the sun moves from this side of me to that side. It’s the kind of water you can really float in, not the kind where your feet slowly sink down; no, this water has real lift, and you can trust it to carry you—dumb questions about the point of vacation and all.
It doesn’t matter that we run out of money half way through our stay and have to “get creative.” It doesn’t matter that my fancy lotion is being sold in the JFK black market for confiscated liquids and gels, and that I embarrassed myself in front of a perfectly nice airport security guard. It doesn’t matter that we keep missing sunset because we stay at the beach just a little too long and then drive frantically toward the brilliant reds and golds between the trees, which recede just as we approach.
When we return to our room: bare feet on cool stone floor, dogs barking in the distance, horse hooves clicking on paved street, tropical breeze against skin. And those ice cold Medallas.
My Boo and I sit in the lush courtyard and sip and study each other.
“Hi,” my Boo says. She has that beach glow, that relaxed air.
“Hi,” I say back.
“There you are,” she says, and smiles.
Of course. We came to the island to lose ourselves in order to find ourselves.
In order to find each other, again.
Photo credit: Stephanie K. Hopkins
Stephanie writes short stories, non-fiction, and young adult fiction. She recently finished a young adult novel, "Edge of Seventeen," and is working on a memoir about her adventures as an ex-professor turned bartender. You can reach her by email at stephaniehop@gmail.com and follow her on Twitter @stephaniehop1.
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