A million years ago when 2020 began, I chose my word of the year: purposeful. After exactly five months of staying at home, I feel like my only purpose is to feed my family (all day, every day), walk my dog, and greet each day as the blessing it is. We are healthy, we are home, and we will get through this time that often feels like a young adult dystopian novel.
Not surprisingly, I’ve read many books. Books, after all, allow the reader to escape into another world, to travel without leaving one’s home. It seems like the perfect cure to wanderlust.
It’s not. As someone who is lucky enough to have the means to travel, I am SO READY. My Southwest and Hilton apps are lonely, the suitcases I bought the kids for Hanukkah sit unopened in our basement, and I’m working my way through my travel-sized toiletries purely out of nostalgia.
I cancelled our mother-daughter trip to Charleston at the end of March, and then our big post-graduation overseas trip in June. Facebook taunted me for weeks with daily memories of past travel, and I almost posted a photo of myself on the couch, just to have something humorous in my memories for 2021. But then I worried that I’d be on that same couch next June, and decided not to tempt fate or scientists’ ability to find a vaccine.
I scoured the rental websites for a beach house or a cabin in the woods, so the four of us could at least escape our home for a bit this summer. But the combination of slim pickings, high prices, and anxiety about safety made a place impossible to find, and we settled in for the long haul.
I did find two online experiences that support small businesses, and allowed me to feed some crumbs to my wanderlust. Check them out if you’re interested!
The Table Less Traveled offers live cooking classes with chefs all over the world. I made an amazing lemon cake with Domenico and Maria, following their lead while they baked in their own kitchen in Capri, Italy. My lemons aren’t from a tree in my backyard, but the cake was still delicious!
Secret Tours offers virtual tours led on Zoom by international guides. I spent a lovely hour one afternoon participating in the Glorious Gin Tour and Cocktail Making class. The instructor was a blast, and I now know how to make (and enjoy) two delicious gin cocktails.
Tomorrow I will travel more than fifteen miles from home for the first time since March. We are taking our college sophomore back to school, and I’m considering this brief road trip a vacation. It’s a sad state of affairs, but this is where we are now. We won’t be back for the planned fall football weekend visit, and my son won’t be home until Thanksgiving. I had the unexpected gift of having him home for the past five months, but he’s ready to go back, and I tell myself I’ll worry less when he’s out of sight. I don’t really believe it, but I’m trying.
Last month I booked a cabin near a national park, so next monthMatt and I can get away for a belated 25th anniversary celebration. The morning after I made the reservations, I felt a little lighter. It was a strange, exhilarating feeling I hadn’t experienced in awhile, although I didn’t realize it was missing until it returned.
That feeling was anticipation of a future trip. How wonderful to feel that excitement again! It may only be for a little while, but it is something.
Linking up with Kristi for Finish the Sentence Friday, if she even remembers me after so long.
The cooking and travel virtual ideas are great! How very lucky you are to have travel extensively! Hope your anniversary trip is absolutely wonderful. I live in one of those states that everyone is visiting, lots of campers and motor homes and motorcycles on our roads with “foreign “ license plates.
Great piece, and I can so relate. We also had to scrap our post grad trip to Europe (for the HS grad). It was a school trip and we rescheduled to next summer, but now I’m getting worried that might not happen either. :-/ We did get to escape to a house my extended family owns on a river in the middle of nowhere. It was nice to have a change of scenery. We are fortunate to live in a small town with access to lots of outdoor activities – that has definitely helped make this strange time more bearable. Hoping to move daughter into dorms Labor Day weekend, but we are keeping expectations real.
Thanks for the “virtual” travel/ cooking ideas!. 😉
Dana, I have felt stifled by my lack of travel opportunities as well. I contempllated the cabin thing too, and was shocked that I couldn’t find anyhting with in a 200 mile radius (which would also alow me to bring the dog!). I think many had the same idea and beat me to it. I tentatively planned to drive to the northeast to see my SIL for the fall colors, but then I discovered all the various travel requirements/restrictions of different states and bailed. We have a fall break at the end of September (if we’re still in school), and I want to do something…but I think it’ll be a last minute decision.
Well I can’t wait to hear about that romantic National Park thing! Travel is such a part of my summer life. And you’re right – those Facebook memories. Whoa. Of course the pregnancy would have canceled a lot of it, but not all. ahhh.. Next summer with a near one-year-old, perhaps.
I’m so with you on traveling for the moments, and yowza to your kids going back to school. Tucker’s school said hybrid but then said 100% online, and it is all over the place. My friend Julie had kids in college and they’re mostly online. I wish we could travel the way we are used to doing so and I totally get that this trip to take your sofmore back… and YAY you to the trip for you and Matt coming up. This whole thing sucks. We need trael as an option. Although I think about the families well… that gets too dark,, so I’ll stop but OMG we need to go places.
We do! Maybe we can have a FaceTime lunch, or cocktail, and catch up. I make a mean Basil Gin Smash…
A glimmer of future wanderlust is great! We were home doing our best in March, then the layoff happened. We had to sell a town home, buy a house and move to another state. So stressful. Hoping to get through this year and get through all of these moving boxes (again) and see a new year happily!
That is stressful, Deanna – I’m sorry! I hope you are able to settle in your new home (and state) and weather this upheaval, and that 2021 is a better year all around!
Dana,
That feeling you felt of exhilaration which you didn’t realize was lost until it came back, is exactly what I felt reading this post! I’ve missed your posts so much and was so happy when an email notice popped up this morning telling me there was a post on your blog. As always, great writing and witty dialogue.
Mom
Oh, heavens. Lynne, your message to your daughter made me tear up immediately. I agree! Dana should keep writing. 😊
Hugs to you, Dana! Great piece. And I didn’t miss your glass metaphor, you clever gal. 😉 May our glasses always be half full, pandemic be damned. 💜😘
Exactly! Thank you for being one of my glass-half-full friends, Kris.
Aww, thanks Mom xoxo