The Meaning of a Vacation
Impressions while being away
We saw it all the time in France, a signpost on the road, whether paired together with a number or not, near rippling fields of purple lavender, on a descent down Luberon’s winding cliffs, hugging the curves of the salty northern coast.
Rappel.
It brought to mind an intrepid adventurer dancing with a rope off the side of the mountain. But surely it meant something else. Something more trafficky, more generic. Warning perhaps. Or yield.
On the three-hundredth-thirty-seventh encounter of this sign or thereabouts, we could stand it no longer. The fires of curiosity could no longer go unslaked. I whipped out my phone to open up the browser and look up for once and for all what this word meant in French. But before I could unlock, before I could embark on my daily ritual of trying and failing at the fingerprint detector before typing in my passcode, there they were, bold and unabashed as always, ready to lure me in: a dozen notifications. Emails from work, confirmation of bills that had automatically been paid, notifications from social networks.
Oh, how they teased! How they lured the finger to swipe, to get pulled into the thick, sticky web of staying current, staying informed.
My thumb took the bait without thinking. Like instinct, the first email was opened. I began reading. A candidate was hired! Hot diggity! I should go sent a sticker!
“So what does it mean?”
“Huh?” I look at my favorite travel companion.
The sunroof is open, the sunshine bright. Before us stretches the winding road, leading us deeper and deeper into the French countryside, thousands of miles from the place we call home, and an entire world away from the bits and bytes I’m holding in my hand.
“What does rappel mean?”
It does the trick. Instantly, I pop into Notifications Center and turn everything off—no lock screen, no banners, no push. I rearrange my home screen icons so that our handy travel guide on Kindle replaces Mail (and Mail gets relegated to the third screen.)
I feel powerful, like I just disarmed a dangerous weapon. Behold! The phone, now rendered harmless in the face of living in the present!
The flames of curiosity return. Maybe the question is trifling, maybe it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. But now I know:
Rappel: remember, reminder; derived from the Latin term for “returning to oneself” (from which “rappelling down a mountain” is also derived.)
It is as prevalent on the roads of France as it is on the 101 in San Francisco—the yellow diamond-shaped sign stuck to the backs of hatchbacks and 4-doors and SUVs.
Bébé à Bord!
It puzzles me. Why does this little token carry across the ocean? What compels mothers and fathers everywhere to announce the presence of a small passenger in their car?
Is it because of pride? (I have a little bundle of joy and I want you and you and you to know!) Or is the idea that the signage inspires a modicum of safety? (Hey, you, speeder behind me. Take note! I’m carrying precious cargo, so you better slow down and not tailgate!) It is apologetic? (If I seem harried or am driving erratically, please understand that this baby on board is driving me crazy with its bawling). Or is it to reap more kindness on the road? (Now that you see that I have a baby, please allow me to switch lanes in front of you.)
My favorite travel companion and I debate this for at least twenty minutes. One day soon, we’ll know from personal experience.
Most of the time when I’m in a foreign place, I love playing the game of spot the differences. What is it that feels so different about the landscape, the flora, the architecture, the patterns? Which berries you can find in the markets here versus back at home? Why do all the pharmacies here flash a neon green plus sign with hypnotizing patterns? It captures the imagination to picture life in a different place, speaking a different tongue and recounting a different history.
Seeing this little sticker, however, I’m struck with a different kind of delight. The world is so big, but there are always common threads.
Across an unassuming little river—almost dry in this season, easy enough to hop-skip-jump the rocks to the other side—is a bridge. They call it Pont de Julien, a few miles south of the ochre village of Rousillon in Provence. It is nothing extraordinary to look at: three arches, thick stone, a sturdy construction.
It is over 2000 years old.
Pedestrians and bikers in tight neoprene race across it still, stopping at the apex to admire the view. Until 2005, this little bridge carried cars as well before a new, more modern bridge was constructed just a few dozen meters away.
The Romans built it in the BC and it was completed in the AD, some 40 years later, on the path of trade from Spain to Rome. Through the fickle whims of nature and all her shattering winds and tumultuous floods, through the rise and fall of every great civilization, through wars and wars and wars, it has stood.
Who were the ones that built this magnificent thing? How does it it feel to start something in your lifetime that you may not live to complete? What are the stories of the millions who have traveled these stones?
I wish I knew.
But it is only the bridge that is still here, made by humans to carry humans and all their fleeting, forgotten stories over the river.
On the last day of our vacation, in Paris, in the Jardin de Luxembourg, I slump into a chair, one of those low-backed ones ideal for slouching, feet propped up on another chair in a most hedonistic fashion. The morning was cloudy and cool, but just moments before the sun stirred, peeking through the thick clouds to lighten the air with a hazy, gentle warmth.
A few yards away is a magnificent fountain teeming with life, the keystone of a palatial garden framed by geometric rows of trees and presided over by some past royal dream home.
I close my eyes. I can still picture the fountain before me, the canvas of so many—old and young, clutching sailboats emblazoned with sea creatures or country flags on the white sails, racing up to the fountain’s edge and delicately setting the boats into the water, prodding them forward with sticks. How the sails would catch the breeze and sail, and sail! How they’d race past the other boats into the heart of the fountain as the kids would laugh and cheer and circle the fountain perimeter, chasing after their boat in case it lands on a distant shore.
There is the fragrance of the flowers in the air, the sound of happy families, the warmth of a just-emerged sun. I can feel the presence of water, and trees, and people. This is what happiness feels like, just the precious moment, nothing more or less than the present in all its perfect entirety.
This is what it’s like to feel like a kid again.
It’s good to get away.
We are industrious, yes. We don’t mind the long hours, or maybe we wear it like a badge of honor—my goodness, is it Friday already? How quickly did the time pass in the flurry of an intoxicating week? How many pieces of news and opinions did we consume and send, how many personal thoughts were broadcast out to the world? How many fires were we in the middle of, feeling the pressure of invisible flames on our shoulders, at the same time feeling like a superhero and a punching bag?
It’s being away that helps me remember: the world is so big. There is an endless amount to know and see, from new peaks and streams and habits, to all the truths that are universal. From the remnants of time that keeps no flesh but whose fossils never fail to inspire.
The world is so big, and I am so small. A speck of dust across the ages, a thread of a story. Let’s not forget the moment, as fleeting as it is. It doesn’t always have to add up to something bigger.
It’s good to get away.
