Skip to main content

I Love Being Here With You - Part III


 

Not knowing what would be in store for us, travelling to New York with a toddler during the thick of summer, we decided to spilt the trip in half and drive up to Long Island for a mini seaside vacation.  Neither of us had travelled to the Hamptons before, but from what we knew of it from the movies, it was worth a visit.

We arrived to the village of Southampton, just in time for a late lunch of clam cassoulet, lobster salad and cold sweaty glasses of white wine at Barrister’s.  Lunch was followed by a stroll around the village, where we took stock of interesting places to hit later: for me it was DVF and Theory (both running sales) and for Mr. Urban it was Sant Ambroeus.  However, Mr. Urban decided that he can’t put off important matters till our visit back into the village the next day, and announced an immediate stop at Sant Ambroues, a pasticceria, confetteria and gelateria (which turned out to be a GREAT idea on various levels).  



With all that sugar and seafood in our bellies, we had to retreat to our hotel, Hampton style cottages spread on five acres of family owned property, across the street from the Bay.  Every detail of the resort made you sigh with delight.  I decided that I didn’t want to leave our little seaside resort for the remainder of our stay.  Except of course to grab food and drinks and visit Theory and DVF.  


We swam in the pool for hours, even during a thunder shower, ate goat cheese, baguettes and olives sitting on teak rocking chairs looking out on to beautiful gardens, smelling the ocean air.   We giggled and chatted about life.  We sang, listened to hip hop on the radio and cuddled.  


Although our girl will probably not remember this lovely vacation, we hope that her memory has a lasting impression of this texture of joy, and that she seeks it in life wherever she goes. 

New York had nearly come and gone with flying colors, but in the wee hours of the morning that we were leaving, we were awoken by the UrbanToddler running a high fever. 

Not even a visit to Southampton’s ER (which is incidentally run by Robert Redford look alike Dr.’s and male nurses – actually the whole town is run by gorgeous, tanned, Kennedy types) could ruin our trip.  We were sad for our girl to run a fever the entire seven hour flight back, but all she wanted was to cuddle quietly with Mommy (my heart melts even as I write this).

And so ends the story of our lovely summer trip to New York…    (hope to follow up this note in the fall – hint, hint :)
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FORTY THREE YEARS, SEVEN MONTHS AND FORTY DAYS

My life and the life of every Iranian I know,  is bookended by the Iranian Revolution of 1979. It doesn't matter that I was barely old enough to remember this historic event or that I spent the decades that followed it, far far away from Iran, the Revolution of 1979 is a heavy, tacky, cruel bookend that defines who we used to be, who we are and the recurring nightmares and dreams we’ve had for 43 years.  I can pinpoint with certainty the exact month after which a general feeling of displacement settled like sticky dust all over me, my family, my classroom, my teachers, our closest friends, our home, our city… In the years and decades that followed, I never experienced another event that brought such a magnitude of change to the nucleus of life.   Not in Iran, and definitely not after a whole life lived outside of Iran.  Perhaps only recently, the experience of the Trump years and the Covid-19 pandemic, the significant fear, change and frustration that both events brought to our col
Post a Comment
Read more

On Donald Trump, Crunchy Bananas and our Children... A "How To" on keeping up Spirits and Sanity

The other morning at breakfast, my four year old looked, yet again somberly, at the breakfast before her.  Despite having enthusiastically selected a hodgepodge of liberally salted hard boiled egg whites on the side of toasted hamburger buns, strawberries and vanilla yogurt and a cup of milk, she still could not bring herself to enjoy her breakfast.  Her face was wrinkled, as was mine with exasperation from yet another failed attempt at assembling a palatable breakfast for my picky eater. This one, she is quite the philosopher.  And before I could ask her why she wasn't eating, she said: "Two Things!"  Holding up two tiny fingers.  "The smells of these foods I picked, don't go with each other! And I wish Donald Trump would magically become Hillary Clinton, and the word (world) would be GREAT again".     Despite our best efforts to protect our children from the anxiety of these times, they are alert and picking up on the mood (and the lingo) in the wor
1 comment
Read more

Safa

I have always loved words.  The way some people love shiny new objects.  As soon as I heard a new word, a word that captured my imagination, my energy, my hundreds of unnamed inner thoughts and feelings, I would latch on to it with fearceness, joy and curiosity.  I have also always been intrigued by how regular old words can be used in an unexpected context and evoke bursts of unexpected feelings in the listener, such as laughter, anticipation or tears.  I would search for those words coming out of the mouths of everyone around me, and mentally catalog them like a dutiful librarian, and await the opportunity to say the words with my own mouth out loud to an audience, or better yet use it in an essay where the teacher could grade it, get a kick out of it, or read it to the whole class.      As a child I always loved the Persian word Safa .   For one thing the word sounds so simple, yet sophisticated and beautiful, and for another, each of my memories of hearing this word is stored in th
2 comments
Read more