My family spent fall break in the San Diego area, where we visited the San Diego Zoo, the corresponding safari park, a number of beaches and a retired Navy aircraft carrier. It was a little something for everyone in the family. But I think the activity we all enjoyed the most was watching the sea lions gathered on the rocks off the coast of La Jolla.
Most of the sea lions were basking in the sun, offering the occasional, relaxed bark, as sea lions are wont to do. But there was one sea lion who was scooting frantically back and forth on a large rock and whose bark was loud, frequent, a little distressed and, seemingly, pretty annoyed. It took us a minute to realize that the bark was directed at a much smaller sea lion floating back and forth between the rocks as the tide came in and out.
With every wave, the pup attempted to flop up onto the rock where its mother waited, failed, and washed back out to sea while she barked at him. He’d wash toward the rock, flop around — while she, I guess, screamed instructions at him — and then he’d wash back out. This went on for tens of minutes and I started to wonder if we were witnessing one of the more tragic episodes of “Planet Earth” in real time. But at long last, powered by the strength of a particularly large wave, the baby sea lion plopped up onto the rock alongside its mother. The crowd that had gathered applauded and the mother sea lion let out a triumphant bark.
I felt a tremendous swell of empathy for the mother sea lion as I reflected on the earlier stages of my children’s lives, when just getting out of the house was a Herculean task and I would have to bark, “Where are your shoes?” and “What do you mean you’re hungry, we just had lunch???” alarmingly often. How nice it is, I thought, that I so rarely have to bark at my children anymore.
For the most part, we’ve reached child autonomy. Everyone can buckle their own seatbelts, eat the food that’s actually on the menu at restaurants and participate in family activities with little to no complaining. It made this San Diego trip our easiest and most enjoyable family vacation to date.
I rode the high of that realization all the way to the airport for our flight home.
I had forgotten that airports are designed to break the spirits of full-grown adults who are seasoned travelers. My family didn’t stand a chance, barking wise.
I am not so presumptuous as to assume that people read every column I write. Or even most of the columns I write. Or even some. This may be your first. In which case, thank you. And also, I’m sorry. But on the off chance that you have read some of what I have published before, you may be wondering why I write so often about airports.
It’s because every single airport experience leaves me feeling despondent about the human condition and wondering if man was ever really meant to take to the skies.
Or maybe I’m just projecting because navigating a new airport with three children in tow pushed me to the brink of sanity.
To be clear, my children were perfectly well-behaved. My 13-year-old and 10-year-old have flown enough to understand airport logistics and basic etiquette. And my 6-year-old, other than walking unbelievably slowly and thinking it was hilarious to drag his suitcase upside down, did pretty well.
But something about herding our family of five from the rental car lot onto a shuttle through security with belongings placed on the belt then placed back on bodies, into a terminal, into the requisite bathrooms, then at the gate while keeping everyone fed and hydrated and trying to navigate a completely new building with all of the particular rules of this particular airport put my nervous system in overdrive. But I kept my cool.
I hate to use two metaphors in one column, but my kids have been really into playing the Nintendo lately and regale me often with tales of their battles with the bosses, aka the villains at the end of every level. Beating the final boss means beating the game. And as we boarded our flight, I couldn’t help that we had faced the final boss of parenting — getting through the airport without any tears or yelling — and beat it.
But after we landed in Salt Lake City, taxied to the gate, and waited while the fancier passengers deplaned ahead of us, my 6-year-old, for no good reason, started singing “99 bottles of beer on the wall.” Not quietly. I motioned for my husband to quiet him, and he tried, but my son persisted all the way through “92 bottles of beer on the wall” until I, from across the aisle barked, “Stop singing.”
So maybe the sea lioness and I are still not so different after all.