Kalkan, Kas, Fetiyhe, Dalyan, Marmaris, and Pamukkale Family Vacation
My family is made up of working-class Vermonters; almost all of us live in the same town, and many of us are afraid of driving on highways with more than one lane. On the rare occasion that we traveled out of state, it was in caravans on our way to summer vacation in Maine; we also took a trip to Disney World when I was a child. As a bit of an outlier, my father had seen the world in ways I could only imagine during the Vietnam War. However, at nearly 70 years old he’d never swam in the ocean. He had been to the ocean before, had even put his feet in the water, but had never worked up the nerve to dive in and swim.
Much to my astonishment, my father had agreed to stuff his backpack borrowed from my brother and set out with us for holiday along the Turkish Riviera. It was a blistering sunny day in Dalyan, which meant from my vantage point, I could only see his slouching silhouette shining as I looked up from the Aegean Sea. The body was so familiar, that frame which looks forward to a hard day’s work, his bare head, and the points of his forty year old mustache. I grabbed a Styrofoam noodle to steady myself and watched my father in silence as he prepared to descend into the ocean.
For me, it was one those experiences where you’re filled with some extravagant feeling you might never have had, because you live in a world that doesn’t allow you to compute so naturally, a world filled with walls and wood and constructions to close you in, to hide your imperfections, your calluses, your anxiety. It doesn’t matter that you’re also feeling guilty because he doesn’t see you watching him face his fear.
Slowly feeling his way across the deck of the boat, taking off his cloths, placing each one carefully on the bench beside him, waiting until the stairs had been lowered, with three noodles in his hand, he began his descent. Finally, he squeezed his eyes shut, slipped his hands from the rungs and dove into a wave, letting it buoy his body forward. He flapped his arms, kicked his legs, and, before I knew it, he opened his eyes right in front of him. He wrapped his arms around me and smiled. He licked his salty lips and asked why his eyes didn’t hurt. “Well, it’s not chlorine,” I said. I ducked under his arms before another wave hit. Before long, every bit of insecurity seemed to float away. He was swimming in the ocean for the first time, beside his son and granddaughters.
I’d like to think my parents deliberately raised a man who prioritizes adventure; and for them the moment wasn’t extravagant, but their plan all along. After all, think of all the things we’d got to do together for the first time.
