Vacation Theory
It’s hard to remember how hot feels before it gets hot. I romanticize it. Long for it.
I dreamt about walking in one of my past lives; through the wet air of the streets of Seoul, sticky with summer, the air thick with the scent of rain on asphalt. The ache of being far from an ocean so intense, I once asked a boy I was seeing to take me to water. We arrived at a bridge over the Han river, catching the hot breeze from the water in the darkness. Our hands all over each other, horny with the newness and the ephemeral. I thought about buying a ticket, taking the extensive plane ride, and arriving there as someone else, walking alone down streets from my past, visiting the people who knew me then.
I dreamt of walking through the 10pm twilight of Paris, across the Seine from the 4th to the 5th, using the most famous monuments in the world as my guide. In that summer I’d sometimes stumble over someone I knew laying in front of Notre Dame (this laying in and around cathedral like monuments was a very particular study abroad thing I think) and we’d say hi or join up for the night, staying out until it got light again. There was always so much wine, the cheap stuff from the grocery store drank from the bottle on the street. Always red. Always cigarettes, and stilted half French conversations until words weren’t needed anymore.
I thought a lot about buying a ticket to New York—this former life was very much within reach. It sat on my to do list and I looked at it everyday. And then I was there! The first morning, jetlagged, waiting for a bus, I delighted in everyone yelling at each other (there was a car with a flat in the bus lane so the bus driver laid on the horn while people at the bus stop yelled that she couldn’t move! She had a flat!) It was hot and humid in New York, everyone nearly naked and dewy—everything I had dreamt of!—but the reality is never quite as sweet. I pushed through it, reminding myself to see everything with the rose-colored longing I’d felt.
One night at a full bar I asked two boys if my group of four could join their table. Instead of just taking the space they gave up, I brought them into the fold. I was open. They offered a puff of their joint, I asked what they do. Exterminators in New York City! I begged them for their horror experiences, they dished like we were around a campfire telling ghost stories—I asked them their age and found they were ten years younger, then made them guess everyone’s age in my group. They didn’t know what 37 looks like. My slip skirt was sticking to my thighs, sheer fabric tracing every curve, my face glowing. I felt 28. I didn’t feel like I needed to rush home to complete my skin care routine, or get a perfect night’s sleep.
Vacation Theory is the notion that you are your best self on vacation. Sounds obvious, but not all vacations bring this out of you. A romantic weekend with your partner? Vacation theory doesn’t apply. In contrast, traveling alone or with one friend makes you bolder and more receptive—because you have to be. It’s a survival instinct that kicks in. You’re compelled to make friends for the evening or overnight. You’ll say yes to things you’d typically say no to.
The trick of vacation theory is that it’s not just for spatial travel, it works too for time travel.
Stay with me.
Every few months to a year I’ll receive a thoughtful text from my ex and we’ll go back and forth with long missives for a few days/weeks until everything quiets again. Texting with my ex makes me want to rummage through my closet for a slutty outfit. Makes me want to wax my asshole, get a new lip gloss, get nauseous over the idea of drinks with him, all the things we’re not saying and all the things we could. This is vacation theory applied to visiting a former self. It offers freedom and possibility and opens us up like the raw wound we once were. It’s a vacation that costs us only imagination and a dash of heartache—I do not want to get back together with my ex, to be clear. But entertaining what was and what could have been or mayyyybe, maybe still could be…makes me feel alive with a potent mix of nostalgia and fantasy.
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This month’s writing workbook includes questions like: What's the weather like where you are? What would make it perfect—a couple degrees? A body of water just outside your door? Describe your ideal climate and place for this moment.