Snork Snickeling

When M grows up she wants to be "an excellent drawer." She also wants to be a "snork snickeler" which is their word for snorkel (a thing they'd never encountered before last week). O wants to be a snork snickeler, too, and an "art maker." I guess she's not limiting her medium just yet.

We learned these things while on our vacation back east. It was fantastic to spend 11 days with our kids as a family. Somehow, when separated from regular life, the same kids who can sometimes drive me up a tree became a near-constant delight. We watched them play in new spaces and make up wonderous games. We spent more time together just hanging out and learning their versions of songs ("it's one-two-three strikes and you'll be happy at the old ball game") and hearing about their newly-formed career plans. Until now the "when I grow up" conversations have been limited to things they can't have yet. Like gum. Or cockatoos. Or sparkly purple cars.

We divided our vacation between New York City and Martha's Vineyard. The whole journey took four airplanes, four buses, two ferries, countless subways, a handful of cars (including taxis), and a couple of recreational kayak excursions. Our vacation had two distinct halves. In New York we didn't rest -- we put our social skills and schedule-cramming talents to the test. It was fun, but not relaxing. We hung out with Grandma Mimi as much as possible and she graciously tagged along to help with kid wrangling in mass transit and stroller pushing. We visited with family (cousins!) and old, dear friends, some of whom we haven't seen in more than two years. Some of whom have entire children we had never met. The girls loved the subway, though until they experienced it they had a really tough time understanding how we were going to get underground, and once we got there how we would get back up. Would we have to dig? Juniper went back to her beloved Quaker Meeting and relished a couple hours wrapped in the familiar faces and feeling of a faith community that still sustains her. We ate great Chinese food. We walked the streets of our old neighborhood noting which restaurant have survived. What's different, what's not. We heard a lot about the insane real estate situation in New York. We asked our friends for a first-hand account of the controversial new Ikea and slightly less maligned Fairway in Brooklyn. We stayed in funnydad's mom's apartment, the one he grew up in. In his old room. On the twin beds he had as a kid. We ate a lot of bagels.



On The Vineyard chez adoring grandparents we just chilled, though the humidity made it anything but cool. After the dry heat of Boulder, the constant humidity of an island in July was a challenge. We went to the beach. Several beaches, actually -- some for walking, some for swimming, and some for serious play. We dug clams, kayaked, and buried our kids in the sand. The internet connection at funnydad's dad's house is slow, which suited us just fine because it gave us a chance to unplug. We ate blueberry pie and fresh pesto and as much clam chowder as we could. And, we used snork snickles to swim at Clam Point and look at all the scallops on the inlet's sandy floor.

We came back to Boulder the way one should from a vacation: refreshed, sad it's over, fearful of the work awaiting at the office, and happy to be back in our own space. We're skipping our regular Delaware beach excursion this year, so this is it for big summer getaways. We'll do a few small weekends as a foursome, but it's always a bit tough to return from a great trip unsure of when the next one will be.



The most poignant part for me was facing fading friendships. It's a fact of moving, it's not a surprise, but it's tough to realize that some people I used to spend so much time with have now turned to people I catch up with when I can. People with kids I don't know and life details I've forgotten. Sometimes, as we traveled between clusters of friends and asked and answered the same basic questions again and again, a silence would fall over the conversation. We'd hit the highlights and there wasn't much use in diving deeper during this disjointed, kid-chasing conversation because we all knew this was the level now. (For now?) People I'd once had endless walks with now became folks with limited common ground.

So, some people I used to spend so much time with have now turned to people I catch up with when I can. And, to be honest, some of the people I used to catch up with when I can have completely fallen away. Though we couldn't have managed anything more, there were still people we couldn't see while in the city. Our New York friendships grew -- for me -- over nearly a decade and a half in New York and for funnydad nearly 40 years, so it's silly to try to compare the whole feeling to the new relationships we have in Boulder. It's more helpful for me to keep sight of the fact that keeping friends takes work. It takes a crammed schedule and a not-relaxing-but-fun four days visiting with people. It takes effort to visit, it takes time to write, and it takes 15 minutes to pick up the phone every now and then. The street goes both ways. If you're reading this blog, chances are our friendship is important to you too. Let's keep it going together.