A DAD'S LIFE: Something about this warmth cossets you
WHEN THE third person in Atlanta airport calls me “sir” I realise they’re not winding me up, they’re actually sincere. We’re on the way to the west coast, the kids’ eyes rolling in their heads, parents’ nerves shredded.
We’ve never taken them this far but figured they’re at an age they can handle it. They can, just about, but the whine factor is ratcheted up to max.
We board for San Diego to a full plane. Kids don’t care, it’s near midnight to them and they’ve been up since 5am. They collapse where they sit and loll on to whoever is unfortunate enough to be beside them.
For the first time I take advantage of the fabled Californian politeness; whoever has been landed on shrugs as if to say it’s okay. We take them at their word, close our own eyes and crash out too.
The rest of the journey is a blur, but I do know we were met by friends and shepherded to our digs. The kids rise at three, do their sums, and wake us to announce: “It’s really 11 at home!” It doesn’t help. We wait in the dark for the sun to rise, listening to Pacific breakers outside the window. Finally, it’s bright enough to check out the beach. The kids know they’re not in Kansas anymore.
In my 20s, like half the population, I spent a year in Australia. Sydney did nothing for me – at the time it was as if south county Dublin had transplanted itself to the southern hemisphere. I couldn’t figure why people would travel to the far side of the world to spend all their time with the very people they had left behind at home. It seemed the opposite of travel. Whatever the city had to offer was blocked by an invisible green ring of Ross O’Carroll-Kellys.
Things changed when we left the city. From that point on it was a beach tour of Oz. It may not have been the most creative or original of trips, but it opened my eyes to the outdoor lifestyle. We worked outdoors, slept and ate, swam and surfed, for seven months without a roof over our heads. I came home vowing that if I ever had children I’d bring them up to that sort of life. A life where the sea was a natural extension, where you went inside only to sleep. I’m not naive, I know a big shiny yellow sun glinting on a blue green ocean top will not cure all ills. But it’s a nice place to start.
Well, “the best laid plans” and all that. Dublin’s grey glamour, a couple of kids and a bit of a career can forestall most sunshine ambitions. Only now, 13 years later, have I finally planted my kids on a Pacific shoreline. They’re both in wetsuits, on bodyboards, learning to surf. They’re running from game to game, eating most of what’s put in front of them. They haven’t asked to turn on the telly for a week. When the elder crawls into bed at night, she tells me she’s too tired for a story. Do I mind not reading her one? Hey, I can live with that.
I run on the beach every morning and marvel at Californians in hats and gloves as the sun begins to bake my back. Something about this warmth cossets you. One evening, walking to the shop, I notice a crowd gathered on the boardwalk. I join them, nosy, and find out they’ve all stopped whatever they were doing to watch the red sun drop like a piece of ripe fruit beneath the horizon. I sit, too, and turn my attention west, those beside me nodding hello, a low “Hey dude” making its way to my ears. I am in Bill and Ted land and loving it. I want to tattoo my torso, pierce my face and ride my white-walled bike from pillar to post.
It always interests me how long a love affair with a place will last when you first rock up. We’re in the throes right now, but already threads are beginning to fray.
The constant barrage on your senses to consume is wearing. The overt politeness while maintaining a wall of deference between you can be gratingly insincere. The fake breasts, perfect teeth and immaculate blonde locks may, over time, lose their gloss.
Probably because we know our time is limited, these negatives don’t get a look in. What a holiday like this also offers is time together. Time to drive each other mental, time to soak each other up, time to notice how things have changed since the last time we got to do this. Just time. In the sun. Dude.