DAYS 31 THRU 36: THE LONG WAY TO SPAIN
/LISBON — The trip-we-never-meant-to-take is rapidly drawing to a close; we fly out of Lisbon tomorrow morning and will officially be Spanish residents when we touch down in Barcelona at noon. After 37 days of taking planes (6), trains (3), and automobiles (1686 km) to visit 9 cities in 6 countries, these four bodies will finally be at rest.
I’m conflicted about this journey’s end. On one hand, all four of us are so ready and excited to settle into our new apartment and our new city and our new lives. We’ve been homeless since May 27 and without virtually all of our material possessions since the cargo container left Brookline 68 days ago. I can’t wait to use shampoo that doesn’t come from tiny bottles and to deviate from my 4-outfit rotation. Moving to Spain — and not wandering aimlessly around Europe — was, after all, the original goal, and one that we postponed only grudgingly. So in that sense, landing in Barcelona will be a start and not an end: the accidental adventure will be over, but the more deliberate one will just be beginning.
But this trip has been special — so unbelievably special — and not just because of the amazing places we got to visit; never have we ever all been together for 38 days straight, all day every day. It was a little social experiment for our family: could we survive without the interludes of school or work or social lives, without the psychological space afforded by a house full of toys and devices and rooms? At the outset, Aaron and I thought it was going to be a patience challenge like no other. We agreed we’d need to take 30-60 minutes each day to do something on our own, be it reading or running or taking a walk to the grocery store. But as it played out, we didn’t end up executing that plan — I can count on two hands the number of times the foursome was separated for any length of time — and “alone time” became increasingly less necessary as we settled into our routine of nonroutine. We all became closer and figured each other out and settled into a new rhythm that has really worked. Of course I knew all along it was finite, but it’s still hard to have it end.
And once it’s over, it’s not entirely clear which — if any — concrete memories Owen and Eliza will get to keep from our last 5+ weeks. There were many moments when I paused and thought, “Gee, it would be so great if they could just remember this…” — the charming play we went to see in London, the freedom of outdoor baths in Tuscany, the triumph of catching tadpoles in a lake in Switzerland — but as the unreliable Luck of Parenting would have it, lasting mental snapshots are just as likely to include things like tediously boring car rides or the trauma of being forced to sleep in a new strange bed every few nights.
That said, I’m not too worried about whether or not they remember the specifics; I’ve kept a travel journal and taken a zillion photos and I will happily recount any number of stories for them — like how Owen refused to be seen without his fingerless biker gloves throughout the entirety of the UK, Denmark, and Germany; or how he went “commando” for several weeks because we realized (too late and too far from home) that all of his underwear were too small; or how Eliza could never be without one of her three pink (but progressively dirt-gray) bunnies; or how after finishing one particularly difficult mountain hike, she declared that she’s a superhero and no longer a princess. The specific memories are so fun, but also in some ways, irrelevant; I can tell that the trip has already changed them — they’ve acquired a love (and a bit of the skill) for traveling and exploring new places and trying new foods and being an outsider on someone else’s turf. And Aaron and I have come to realize that they (and maybe we all) are more adaptable than we otherwise would’ve guessed.
The trip we didn't want to take turned out to be the best gift we never would've asked for. We had to take the long way to Spain, but what a surprisingly rewarding way it was.
