Post Vacation Blues (PVB)

Vacation is over. I’m not sitting on my porch in Wellfleet, sipping wine and slurping back some oysters. My skin is not salty from the ocean, but sticky from Dean’s PBJ. Grace is being a sassy pants, and had an epic tantrum last night; balled fists,  screaming bloody murder from her bedroom. Dean won’t settle down, and the ocean air seems to have made the brute stronger. In the day and a half since we’ve been home, my voice has gone hoarse from yelling, and I feel like I’m losing the battle. The only one in the house that is truly happy to be home is the dog, and she didn’t go on vacation with us.

Any good vacation worth its salt (see what I did there?) has the potential to induce the Post Vacation Blues, and this one is no different.

The thing that I like about Wellfleet is that everything slows down. There are lots of unpaved roads that force you to drive slowly. The best way to get to the secret pond is to walk, following the path through the woods. Just remember to pick it up on the other side after you cross under the power lines, and let the rest of your crew know where to meet you, before you lose your phone signal.

Do NOT offer to drive back home with the 10, 7, 5 and 2 year old, when the ten year old assures you he knows the short path to where the car is parked. DO text: LOST! PICK UP! But DON’T bother to use your phone unless you’re at the top of a hill; you won’t get a signal and you’ll waste your battery. When you do get a signal, your husband won’t answer anyway because he took the path home through the woods and left his phone in the car. Begin to sweat furiously, yelling at the children: “Put the frog down and WALK! No, I can’t push you up the hill on the stroller with your brother. Tristan, are you sure this is the right way? Only 60% now? Leave the frog alone. Put it down. Leave. The Frog. Alone. Please. WALK!! Fuck.” Say nothing when Grace repeats the last part.

DO ask for directions from a creepy old dude living in the woods with ferocious sounding dogs, a hearing aid, and Life Alert hung around his neck; because once you’re lost in the woods with 4 kids in Wellfleet you begin to panic and think about it getting dark, with no phone signal or battery,  you’ll take your chances on the creepy old dude. In my experience, anyone giving directions in Wellfleet will tell you “take a right at the split, another right after the beach plums, and a right just past the old jelly shack, and there you are.” Excuse me, but isn’t that a circle?

I like exploring the town’s beaches and ponds, and building a bonfire on LeCount Hollow Beach. I like running down to the marina in the morning; with every turn I take, another marsh, the smell of the ocean air, and  families having breakfast in the garden. I like coffee all morning long with my pb boulangerie pain-au-chocolate. Then there are the aforementioned oysters with wine, surrounded by my family and good friends. There’s no rush to do anything, which is such a difficult thing to achieve.

Next year we’ve decided to go for two weeks. At the end of one, you’ve only just slipped down to second gear and gotten accustomed to the laid back ‘Fleetian lifestyle. Then it’s time to speed clean, pack the house and head off Cape in time to beat the traffic.  Sling-shot back into reality; I’ve been grocery shopping, house cleaning, and doing SO. much. laundry. But I have the memory of Carnival in Provincetown, and showing my children that Love is Love – with great costumes. I have mystery bruises and dry, cracking feet. I have great stories, and a light at the end of the PVB tunnel with school starting next week. I’m motivated to write this down and get back to work. Next summer’s oysters will taste so much sweeter…