eat, play, love — Summer of Rove

After leaving my job as editor-in-chief of a major celebrity weekly magazine, I expected serious withdrawal symptoms. I’d worked high-stress, all-consuming journalism jobs, always on tight deadlines, since the day I graduated from college more than 20 years ago. They suited me. I’m a creature of habit and a lover of security. Anxiety, confusion, cold-turkey night sweats as I detoxed from the sweetly numbing safety of a steady job with its never-ending news cycle, medical benefits, 401k, biweekly paychecks … I tried to prepare. But something funny happened: With no magazine to put out, no staff to manage, no morning rush getting ready for work while packing the kids’ lunches and making sure teeth were brushed, I wasn’t anxious or confused.

Instead of night sweats, I was sleeping soundly. I had time on my hands for the first time I could remember. And instead of worrying about how to spend it, I started doing things I’d never had time for before. I went on school field trips (five in four weeks — a personal best and maybe even a world record?). I watched Tidying Up and KonMari’d the holy hell out of my closets. I cooked, which led to the major revelation that even when I do have enough time, I really DON’T love making dinner for my family. Speaking of Marie Kondo, I’m still not sure about her main exhortation. (Can an exercise bra really spark joy, or is it good enough if it does its job, smells OK, has no holes and isn’t hideous?) But she did get me thinking more generally about joy, which had been in increasingly short supply as my career took me higher and higher on magazine mastheads. I could name a thousand things that sparked frustration, anger, worry and hopelessness, but the ‘joy’ list was much shorter. At the top: my husband and our two children, Lulu and Max. And travel.

I first experienced Europe at age 12 on a road trip through Italy and France with my dad and younger sister. Later I would study in Spain, backpack through Western Europe, fall in love with Mexico, work in Shanghai for a year and explore Southeast Asia several times. But since climbing the corporate ladder and having babies, my vacation days were limited to a few weeks a year. In my new life of funemployment, I had time to think about how I’d never spent more than 7-10 days in any one place with my kids outside our home base of NYC. (Like the trip to Las Terrenas, in the Dominican Republic, pictured above.) I decided to plan a trip. A big one. And I gave myself a deadline, because I need those. I read so much about packing cubes, carry-on luggage and plug adapters that my brain went soft. I went down one Internet rabbit hole after another: Airbnb listings, hotel reviews, regular travel blogs, family travel blogs.

These four carry-ons, plus a small backpack apiece for me and M, comprise all of our luggage.

A few months later we were on our way to JFK with four carry-on bags and the promise of a summer together that would be full of food, play, exploration and the exhilarating (and frankly terrifying) prospect of months of uninterrupted time together — no school, no camp, no sitters or sports or playdates or work commitments to spin our lives into a whirling windstorm that made all of us, even my 4-year-old, ships passing in the night (and on weekends). It would be tough, it would show my children the world outside our corner of NYC. It would be our summer of rove.