What a great holiday weekend. It was one of those rare times when everything I was looking forward to met or exceeded my expectations. It was a joyful three days, from beginning to end.
The plan that was hatched back in April, which involved meeting my sister Sarah and her family as they flew into Boston and then taking her two kids home with me for an overnight while the adults enjoyed her college reunion in Providence, and then meeting up with them the following morning to hand off their kids as they drove northwest to my brother-in-law’s reunion in Amherst (note to any single people reading this: unless you marry someone who attended the same college you did, be sure to choose someone with a different graduation year, so you don’t get stuck every five years trying to make it to two different reunions at the same time), worked exactly as I hoped it would. The meet-up at the airport went flawlessly, and the four cousins – my two children and Sarah’s two – had a wonderful time playing together from 4:00 on Friday afternoon until nearly 11:00 the following morning. My parents joined us for Friday night dinner, and even the menu worked out just as I’d hoped: mountains of pasta, with a piquant anchovy-tomato sauce for the adults as well as the gastronomically adventuresome Tim and regular marinara sauce or butter for the younger three. Then we met up with Sarah and John for lunch and I got to hear a little bit about the first of the two reunions – and tell them a little bit about the sleepover, including showing them a video clip of the originally choreographed Taylor Swift musical revue performed on Holly’s bed – before we parted ways.
After that, the four of us headed into Boston for our 24-hour excursion: again, we were charmed. The Bostix booth had half-price tickets for the evening showing of Blue Man Group, and Legal Sea Foods still has lobster on the children’s menu. We exited the parking garage with seven minutes to spare on our 24-hour ticket price. Charmed indeed. Even the dog enjoyed herself, doing an overnight with my parents. (Mom bought her a rawhide bone from Whole Foods. I never shop for the dog at Whole Foods. That’s what grandparents are for, I suppose.)
On Monday I attended the town Memorial Day observances at the cemetery and then visited for a while with a friend. The weather was hot and sunny; predicted thunderstorms never materialized. I made a bowl of salsa, with plum tomatoes and garlic and jalapenos and lime juice and avocado and fresh cilantro, and ate most of it myself. (A little self-indulgent, true, but no one else in my family likes my homemade salsa.) Tim played an early evening baseball game and returned home pleased with his pitching.
It was a great weekend. Spending an hour at a Memorial Day observance isn’t quite enough to feel like I paid enough tribute to the meaning of the holiday, but nonetheless, I savored every minute of it. The whole weekend went exactly as I’d hoped, and I can’t ask for anything more than that.
Showing posts with label Boston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boston. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
City stay
It was a plan three years in the making, though the actual scope of the plan certainly doesn’t merit taking that long to effect.
Three years ago, Rick and I agreed we’re really like to go into Boston for an overnight getaway: see a live theater performance, walk through the Back Bay neighborhood in which I lived during the years between college and marriage, absorb the ambience of city life that we expose ourselves to so little these days.
Boston is only 45 minutes from where we live, and leaving the house and kids behind for one night really isn’t that complicated an undertaking, so it shouldn’t have taken three years to pull this off. We’ve traveled for longer stints of time to far more distance places in those same three years.
But somehow the stars just never aligned: our schedule and our wishes and our budget never intersected at a point where this little trip seemed viable until this month.
And in the three years since we first imagined it, we’d made a critical change to the plan. Perhaps it has to do with my own growth process as a parent and perhaps it has to do with the difference between having kids age 5 and 9 versus having kids age 8 and 12, but at some point not long ago I decided I wanted Tim and Holly to come with us. “We need a family excursion more than we need an adult getaway right now,” I told Rick when we were finally ready to nail down a plan. “They haven’t had enough exposure to city life lately either. Let’s all do this together.”
So that’s what we did, and even though it was only 24 hours, it was a wonderful experience. We ate at Legal Sea Foods, visited the Museum of Fine Arts, saw a performance by Blue Man Group, swam in the hotel pool, and took a long walk through all our old haunts: past my Back Bay studio apartment, through Rick’s college neighborhood, into the Christian Science Center courtyard where we got engaged. “This is where I was conceived!” Tim exclaimed when Rick told him the stone bench amidst flowering gardens next to the famous fountain was the site of our engagement. “Not exactly!” I exclaimed, startled by his mistake. Conceived of, maybe, which is definitely different. But we let it go at that.
Tim thanked us for including him; Holly followed suit when she saw that we appreciated his words, even though I don’t think she had the same mature awareness that Tim did as far as understanding we could have just as easily gone by ourselves. And that was one thing I couldn’t help thinking was better about traveling with them now than when they were a lot younger: with little kids, you spend a lot of time trying to arrange family trips and hoping the kids appreciate it. At this point, we know they do. And they say so.
Perhaps it shouldn’t have taken us three years to execute on this plan, but I’d argue it was worth the wait. We all had a wonderful and memorable time. Simple enough to drive 45 minutes from home for a single overnight? Absolutely. But all the more appreciated for how long it took us to get there.
Three years ago, Rick and I agreed we’re really like to go into Boston for an overnight getaway: see a live theater performance, walk through the Back Bay neighborhood in which I lived during the years between college and marriage, absorb the ambience of city life that we expose ourselves to so little these days.
Boston is only 45 minutes from where we live, and leaving the house and kids behind for one night really isn’t that complicated an undertaking, so it shouldn’t have taken three years to pull this off. We’ve traveled for longer stints of time to far more distance places in those same three years.
But somehow the stars just never aligned: our schedule and our wishes and our budget never intersected at a point where this little trip seemed viable until this month.
And in the three years since we first imagined it, we’d made a critical change to the plan. Perhaps it has to do with my own growth process as a parent and perhaps it has to do with the difference between having kids age 5 and 9 versus having kids age 8 and 12, but at some point not long ago I decided I wanted Tim and Holly to come with us. “We need a family excursion more than we need an adult getaway right now,” I told Rick when we were finally ready to nail down a plan. “They haven’t had enough exposure to city life lately either. Let’s all do this together.”
So that’s what we did, and even though it was only 24 hours, it was a wonderful experience. We ate at Legal Sea Foods, visited the Museum of Fine Arts, saw a performance by Blue Man Group, swam in the hotel pool, and took a long walk through all our old haunts: past my Back Bay studio apartment, through Rick’s college neighborhood, into the Christian Science Center courtyard where we got engaged. “This is where I was conceived!” Tim exclaimed when Rick told him the stone bench amidst flowering gardens next to the famous fountain was the site of our engagement. “Not exactly!” I exclaimed, startled by his mistake. Conceived of, maybe, which is definitely different. But we let it go at that.
Tim thanked us for including him; Holly followed suit when she saw that we appreciated his words, even though I don’t think she had the same mature awareness that Tim did as far as understanding we could have just as easily gone by ourselves. And that was one thing I couldn’t help thinking was better about traveling with them now than when they were a lot younger: with little kids, you spend a lot of time trying to arrange family trips and hoping the kids appreciate it. At this point, we know they do. And they say so.
Perhaps it shouldn’t have taken us three years to execute on this plan, but I’d argue it was worth the wait. We all had a wonderful and memorable time. Simple enough to drive 45 minutes from home for a single overnight? Absolutely. But all the more appreciated for how long it took us to get there.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Overcoming inertia for a trip to the Institute of Contemporary Art
On Sunday, we took a family excursion to the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston: both kids, my husband Rick, and me. My mother came with us as well.
This was a big deal for us. We four are not a good family for cultural excursions. We’d rather be doing something physical, something outdoors. We’d rather bike, swim, go boating, or go snowshoeing, as we did last week, than visit a museum.
Often, I can rationalize this fact about us. In my mind, when I propose a trip to a museum or architectural landmark and the rest of the family votes me down, I give them credit for valuing outdoor recreation, for appreciating the pleasures of the fields and woods and country lanes surrounding our house rather than wanting to get into the car and drive for 45 minutes into the city to pay admission to look at art or scientific wonders.
But recently I’ve resolved to try harder to get my family out of our comfort zone. As I wrote about here, there’s a fine line sometimes between appreciating what you have and becoming quasi-agoraphobic. Much of the time I too would far rather read, go for a walk or cook something than pack up and go somewhere. But it’s important to let the outside world in, and I feel like my family is at a point where I have to make it more of a priority.
The Institute of Contemporary Art was a fabulous destination for us. Even if Tim hadn’t been engaged by the contents of the museum, he would have been happy just with the view out over the water; he loves to see boats, both moored and under steam. Holly, my little artist, is always curious about how works of art are made, and the ICA has wonders of all kinds from an artistic perspective: photography, sculpture, even video art. Both kids were fascinated by the giant glass elevator in the center of the building; just watching the elevator and looking out at the harbor could have filled the time for them.
But both found works of art that fascinated them within the collection as well. Tim was mesmerized by a gigantic cube made entirely of straight pins. Holly liked the pink glass brick whose surface looked like water.
I was pleased we’d made the effort to get into the city. I want my kids to feel familiar with Boston, and yet for all of the aforementioned reasons I’m sometimes lazy about driving in with them. I want them to see the skyline, the buildings, the Charles River, the harbor and know that something interesting is about to happen. I want them to respect the diversity of the city, and its history.
At the same time, I understand the pull of inertia. When children are very little, we spend a lot of time trying to entertain them: playing games, arranging visits with other small children, going to child-oriented performances. In a way, it’s such a relief to me that mine entertain themselves so easily now and are so happy to have time at home to pursue their own activities, as they did for much of last week during school vacation. Whereas in earlier years I planned a lot of activities to keep all of us busy, now I have to insist that everyone rouse themselves from what they’re doing and join in a cultural excursion.
So it’s good to have kids who entertain themselves, and it’s also good to rally the troops once in a while and insist that we all get out. Getting to the ICA had been a goal of mine for a while. Each time we do a trip like that, it gets easier to persuade them to join me for the next excursion. There’s a lot to be said for the recreation and nature out where we live, but I need to remember the importance of exposing them to more of the world as well. Even the world just 20 miles away from our quiet rural home.
This was a big deal for us. We four are not a good family for cultural excursions. We’d rather be doing something physical, something outdoors. We’d rather bike, swim, go boating, or go snowshoeing, as we did last week, than visit a museum.
Often, I can rationalize this fact about us. In my mind, when I propose a trip to a museum or architectural landmark and the rest of the family votes me down, I give them credit for valuing outdoor recreation, for appreciating the pleasures of the fields and woods and country lanes surrounding our house rather than wanting to get into the car and drive for 45 minutes into the city to pay admission to look at art or scientific wonders.
But recently I’ve resolved to try harder to get my family out of our comfort zone. As I wrote about here, there’s a fine line sometimes between appreciating what you have and becoming quasi-agoraphobic. Much of the time I too would far rather read, go for a walk or cook something than pack up and go somewhere. But it’s important to let the outside world in, and I feel like my family is at a point where I have to make it more of a priority.
The Institute of Contemporary Art was a fabulous destination for us. Even if Tim hadn’t been engaged by the contents of the museum, he would have been happy just with the view out over the water; he loves to see boats, both moored and under steam. Holly, my little artist, is always curious about how works of art are made, and the ICA has wonders of all kinds from an artistic perspective: photography, sculpture, even video art. Both kids were fascinated by the giant glass elevator in the center of the building; just watching the elevator and looking out at the harbor could have filled the time for them.
But both found works of art that fascinated them within the collection as well. Tim was mesmerized by a gigantic cube made entirely of straight pins. Holly liked the pink glass brick whose surface looked like water.
I was pleased we’d made the effort to get into the city. I want my kids to feel familiar with Boston, and yet for all of the aforementioned reasons I’m sometimes lazy about driving in with them. I want them to see the skyline, the buildings, the Charles River, the harbor and know that something interesting is about to happen. I want them to respect the diversity of the city, and its history.
At the same time, I understand the pull of inertia. When children are very little, we spend a lot of time trying to entertain them: playing games, arranging visits with other small children, going to child-oriented performances. In a way, it’s such a relief to me that mine entertain themselves so easily now and are so happy to have time at home to pursue their own activities, as they did for much of last week during school vacation. Whereas in earlier years I planned a lot of activities to keep all of us busy, now I have to insist that everyone rouse themselves from what they’re doing and join in a cultural excursion.
So it’s good to have kids who entertain themselves, and it’s also good to rally the troops once in a while and insist that we all get out. Getting to the ICA had been a goal of mine for a while. Each time we do a trip like that, it gets easier to persuade them to join me for the next excursion. There’s a lot to be said for the recreation and nature out where we live, but I need to remember the importance of exposing them to more of the world as well. Even the world just 20 miles away from our quiet rural home.
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