Dear ECS: I will miss this beach

Dear ECS,

It all started innocently enough.  On our last day back in the Seychelles, hoping to spark a little daddy/daughter conversation about what a great vacation it was and what an amazing place we got to visit, I asked innocently enough, I thought, “Are you sad we are going back home honey?”

Your response showed pretty clearly you understood the premise of the question, as immediately you broke into heavy tears and kept repeating, “I will miss this beach!”  Wails of anguish started on the beach as we packed up, continued as we walked through the jungle to the car.  Your pain at leaving this beach was in that moment on par with the pain you feel about parent work trips (well maybe not quite that level).  This continued for longer than I would have ever anticipated, to the point where I was pretty annoyed at myself for asking the question in the first place.   Whoops, a little parent fail in paradise.

Of course, you are right.  I will miss this beach (Soleil Beach) too honey, this beach is amazing.   The huge boulders rising out from the azure sea.  Amazing.  The soft white sand, and the big shade trees to keep us out of the sun when we want.  Amazing.  The snorkeling with a multitude of bright fish species swimming amongst the rocks and coral.  Amazing.  The serious sandcastle building.  Amazing.  The open air restaurant, where I imagine shoes are highly discouraged.  Amazing.  The jungle coming right up to that white sand.  Amazing.  The long swims I did out from the beach until I was far from shore, looking across the sea to a semi-distant island and the back on to Mahe, bobbing contently in the salt water.  That was for sure amazing. 

And so are the other 6 or so other beaches we explored during our long weekend trip back to the Seychelles (http://livingthekoroldream.blogspot.com/2018/03/dear-ecs-wonderful-days-in-seychelles.html).  The scenery is stunning, jungle merging with cliffs merging with turquoise sea.  

Our time as a family and with our dear friends from London is wonderful.   You running around those beaches and the villa, squealing in delight is indelible.  The food is great, although probably more for mom and dad than you, with thick cuts of various delicious fish on offer pretty much everywhere we eat.  Yes, the local rum is delicious too.

All in all, a perfect vacation. 

Of course, a perfect vacation in the Seychelles sounds redundant.  But this trip had me thinking about a dynamic your mom and I bring to our travels.  You see, we don’t usually seek out vacations that take us to places we have been before.  Even if those places are awesome.  So often, we want to try a new spot, city, country, to see what it is like.   I don’t think that is going to change and many, many trips where we don’t know what is exactly going on, when there is a bit of tension as we figure it out, when maybe we end up at the wrong town/restaurant/beach are in our collective futures.   Sorry honey, just a warning about that.  And some of those misadventures will become family lore and lead to us finding gems we would never have otherwise. 

But, I think I can learn a bit from our most recent trip.  Because I was relaxed in a way that is hard for me to zen to when I am figuring things out along the way.  This trip, we stayed in the same basic area of the main island in the Seychelles, the northern peninsula.  Our villas were about 5 miles apart, so it was newish in that respect.  And we tried new restaurants, and beaches.   We even had a sublime all-day unforgettable lux experience at the Four Seasons.  So we had new stuff, it just fit neatly within the architecture of what I knew already.  The things that can seem a little like work on vacation, like finding the grocery store or figuring out where to go from the rental car, we knew those from our trip a year ago.  So it was so easy to settle in wholly and fully to being with loved ones and simultaneously making the most of our time and not feeling any stress about how to make it all come together.

love,

dad