Expect Stories

My daughter Ella sent me this picture she snapped last week, knowing I'd love it. At first glance, it's a wildlife photograph of a Black Skimmer family on a beach in coastal New England. But look again, and it's every family vacation with little kids. The youngster on the left is flapping wildly and demanding that snack-time happen now, right now. Her sibling has reached the familiar childhood state of "I'm done" and flopped dramatically onto his belly. Mom and Dad wish they could retreat to a quiet salt marsh and spend the afternoon alone.

Every parent recognizes this photograph. Vacations promise relaxation, but remove everyone's routines, familiar beds, favorite foods, and predictable schedules, and we adults find ourselves hopping from one small crisis to the next. Throw in blazing sun, deep water, unfamiliar bathrooms, and sand that somehow migrates into everyone's underwear, and by the drive home everyone is thinking the same thing: I need a vacation from my vacation.

The trick is to expect stories, not rest. You'll rest later. (Much, much later.) But for now, you're collecting family folklore. The crazier the moment, the better the story decades from now. It will be the glue binding your family to each other and to your shared past.

So when vacation chaos erupts this summer, press the camera shutter in your head. Daniel tumbling into in the duck pond at Monticello. Click. Mama Bear obsessing about protecting her Baby Bears from actual (imaginary) bears in a soaking tent in the Adirondacks at midnight. Click. One of us losing our lunch in the front hall of the Met after a wild New York cab ride. Click.

See? Your story is developing already.

—Debra Ross, publisher

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