I've never wanted my own children, so I'm more than happy to accept my best friend's children as my own (you can always give them back). I was a steady part of Emily's life until she was about 3 or 4, then followed my job further away. I missed a lot, I feel. She's incredibly smart, beautiful, and talented in my arenas like art and gymnastics. Sometimes she's a little timid and anxious. But there's a stubbornness in her (just ask her mom) that I have a feeling will grow into a major strength. I feel like if she had the courage to brave new and scary experiences, she could have whatever she wanted in life. She's now ten years old, and I've started her on the path to traveling.
I'm not new to traveling. I've been traveling on my own for years. I am however, new to traveling with a child. For our first trip, we chose Hawaii. I've been thinking about this trip as it approached with a mix of excitement and nervousness.
Emily was nervous for the trip, the flight, probably security, probably many other things (like having to deal with me for 5 days). I put on a brave face to show that travel really was not as big a deal as we sometimes think. But as we approached the TSA agent at security, my hands were shaking to the point of not being able to hold the tickets steady. I felt like I was stealing someone's child and was going to get caught. I would be arrested for sure. Even worse, I felt like the shaking in my hands would be a dead give-away that I had kidnapped this child. I was armed with her birth certificate and a letter from her mother (plus Emily would hopefully vouch for me), but it didn't do much to ease my fears.
I handed the agent my driver's license and ticket, then handed over Emily's ticket. The agent asked her name and she gave it to him. He waved us through. We were instructed to go through the metal detector instead of the body scan. Neither of us set off any alarms, neither of us had suspicious bags (I had decided against the pencil sharpener for the colored pencils). We located our gate and then headed to Starbucks.
On the plane, Emily sat by the window, and I sat next to her in a two seat row. It was nice to not have anyone that either of us would have to make get up a ton of times to pee. Loading passengers took awhile, and she wanted to know when we were going to leave. I explained the process. She buckled her seat belt right away and fished through the seat-back pocket in front of her. She pulled out the barf bag.
"Oh, that's a barf bag" she said as she tucked it back in. I wondered how she knew. Did it say barf-bag on it?
She tried to get the in-flight entertainment working on the screen in front of her. I told her she would probably have to wait until we were in the air. We looked through the magazine provided.
As we pushed back from the gate, Emily asked if we were flying yet (she's been on a plane before but was quite a bit younger). We looked through the emergency procedures card and I explained the oxygen masks and exit doors to her in a manner that wouldn't alarm her. Taxiing along the runway, she asked again if we were flying. She wanted to know how long it was going to take to reach the ocean (by plane). Immediately on take-off, she said "oh, there's the ocean!". We watched San Diego peel away beneath us.
We watched the flight tracker on the screens and she said "We're not even moving!". Our pilot announced the flight was going to take almost an hour less than we had planned. That was good news. We planned our trip, colored, and Emily watched a movie. She tried to get comfortable enough in the seat to sleep, but that never happened.
She came back from the restroom and told me how the toilet flush had scared her. I had forgotten to warn her about that. She asked why there was a time difference, and I did my best to explain that. She asked if it would get dark earlier in Hawaii. I didn't know the exact answer to that, but I figured the latitude wasn't all that different from San Diego.
The temperature, altitude, time to Hawaii, etc, all flashed in front of us on the screen.
"It says it's 59 degrees outside", she said. I looked at the screen.
"Negative 59...Celsius. Negative 74 Fahrenheit." I explained how water freezes to ice at 32 degrees...and we were at negative 74. I told her if she chucked her water bottle out the window, it would probably freeze instantly. She opened the window and put her hand on it.
As we went down in altitude on our approach to Honolulu, my ears popped worse than hers (I had a stuffy nose). I pointed out how her water bottle was collapsing in on itself. I told her that's what was happening to our ears, and explained air pressure, and then pressure under the sea.
We spotted land in the distance. A big volcano on Hawaii perhaps. We decided the pilot should just re-direct and drop us off first.
"Look how red the dirt is! Why is it red?" I tried my best to explain mineral content in dirt.
We landed...and there was a plane parked at our gate. To try to keep the passengers calm and patient, they played island music with birds chirping... far too loud. Emily's assessment of it reminded me of the discussions her mom and I have when we're being cynical.
Emily asked if they spoke English in Hawaii. And if they had their own flag.I reminded her it was just another state in the US. "Oh yeah."
We made our way to the Inter-Island terminal and perused the souvenir shops. Emily and I went back and forth trying to pronounce the names of the different destinations on the monitors. I added extra emphasis on the "ui" at the end (like "oooh -eee!") with my best islander intonation. She giggled.
Boarding took a long time and she was getting impatient. We were both ready to get to our hotel.
We passed over several islands on our way from Oahu to Hawaii. Each one looked different. Emily found the map in the magazine and tried to figure out which one was which.
"And in Ireland" she said. I paused. Ireland was not tropical.
"They get a lot of rain in Ireland too. I've been to Ireland, I recommend it. They speak English there too, but sometimes it's hard to understand".
"Because of their accents?"
"Yep".
"Like Australia."
We got off the plane and walked to the car rental. She asked if we could just roll the windows down and not use the AC (she doesn't like AC). I decided I could brave the heat and humidity for the opportunity to let the Hawaiian breeze blow through our hair.
By the time we got to the car, she was ready for the air conditioning. We found the hotel and I was excited to hear all of her questions and comments about the things around us that were so different. Her curiosity must have been overwhelming, but she's also at the age where she can do some impressive reasoning.
At a more expensive restaurant than we initially planned, she looked around and asked if I thought if these people were locals or tourists. I said they were probably mostly tourists but that some probably lived here.
"Do you think the Hawaiians like the tourists?"
That is a really profound question that I don't think most people ask themselves when they travel. I started thinking about Belize, where the locals are treated like second class citizens, and tourists are catered to.
"I don't like tourists" she continued. "They're always rushing around all over the place...getting in the way..."
Growing up in San Diego, you get a lot of tourists. I explained the concept of "necessary evil" and how tourists enhance the economy.
We walked back to the hotel in the dark, and wondered what creatures were making the sounds we were hearing. Emily thought maybe they were birds. I was thinking more like beetles or frogs. I told her about the cicadas I heard in Chicago. We saw a ton of cats. One cat ran into the road just as a car was approaching.
"Oh no!" I shrieked.
Emily stopped walking and covered her face "I don't want to watch this!" she cried out,
The car braked and the cat made it to safety.
We stopped and stood under a banyan tree and listened to the sound. "Maybe the ladies at the front desk will know what that is" Emily said.
"Why are you watching that?" she asked.
"When you were little!" I said.
"I don't remember that. I don't remember watching Dora. " (She totally did.)
"Hey, what is the name of that one with the tree house and the sloth?"
"Zoboomafoo! With the lemur? I still watch that."
I woke up this morning just before 3 am, Hawaii time. 6 am San Diego time. I tried to go back to sleep but got up and made coffee instead. Emily, who is not a morning person, woke up at 4 and asked what time it was. I told her it was 4 am Hawaii time and 7 am San Diego time. She said she's used to it being light out at this time. The time thing is hard, that's for sure. Breakfast doesn't even open until 7 am. She's trying to sleep more.
Today we'll be heading out on our first adventures here. I get the feeling that Emily is going to turn out to be quite the traveler. Despite her anxiety, she has embraced all the strange and new things, and I told her how having courage to do scary things opens up your world to so many possibilities.
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