So much for my plans…

Imagination and reality. Lessons learned, mistakes and surprises in a quick trip with my eldest son.

I took a quick road trip with my eldest son, Lorenzo, just before he had to go back to daycare in Greece after the summer break to take care of some paperwork (oh Italy!). We took the ferry from Brindisi while Irene and our youngest, León, stayed home.

The idea of the trip was full of anticipation of the novel: “We’ve never travelled alone like this,” I said. Lorenzo, four and a half, corrected me: “Yes we have — we went to Argentina alone”. Well, yes, I said, but Mamá and León joined us afterwards. “Now it’s really just you and me. There won’t be anyone else with us. And then we’ll come back together again. And, we’re taking the ferry this time!”

We left home at 6 in the morning. In less than ten minutes, Lorenzo had woken, got dressed, been to the bathroom and climbed into the car with his little rucksack. So much for the tough morning I envisaged we’d have.

Lorenzo did not sleep in the five hours we had to Igoumenitsa, the port in the north-west of Greece from where we would be going to Brindisi. So much for that morning siesta I had sweet thoughts of. 

Five minutes after getting onto the ferry and with an hour to go until departure, Lorenzo, in his little lynx-like way, managed to catch sight of a little boy who was clutching a storybook about the battle of Troy.

Lorenzo’s been immersed in the stories of the Greek myths for weeks now, especially with the death of Achilles and the battle of Troy. We listen to audiobooks and read the books he has together (we’re in a phase where he asks for them every day).

With this information hard wired into his little brain, it didn’t take much for Lorenzo to see the image of a Trojan horse in the distance. Lorenzo approached the little boy and, taking a book out of his little rucksack, said “I have the Greek myths too”.

The other child was older, and he showed Lorenzo page after page of his book. Lorenzo followed suit, adding to boot his version of the attacks of the Greeks on the Trojans. They looked at the pictures together and made comments.

Later, they played various games. More than an hour passed. So much for the difficult time I thought we’d have passing the time, waiting for the ferry to push off.

We left the family finally to relax a bit, and went to eat something. Getting up to the main room of the ferry, I realised my novice’s error: I had forgotten to save a seat for us, and now a large number of them were taken up by people snoozing.

As I looked for a spot, a couple asked us: “Argentinos?” Their two Spanish children were delighted that someone else could speak their language. They had travelled to Argentina, crossing the country from west to south via National Route 40.

Lorenzo played really well with these children for a good two hours. But, since he had been up since very early, fatigue was setting in, making things more difficult. Of course, Lorenzo did not want to settle down to sleep in a noisy environment with children running all around him.

When I noticed that the time had come for him to take a nap — he was tripping more than usual, getting very irritable — I picked him up and decided to do a round. I was forcing him a little bit, since he did not want this, but within moments he went quiet. So much for outgrowing sleeping in dad’s arms.

I lay Lorenzo down on the chairs, and chatted to the couple for the last couple of hours of the trip. It ended in an invite for the whole family to visit them in Málaga, one of the places Irene and I have been speaking about going to. Amongst other things, we’ve wondered about it being a place we could ultimately settle down in.

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We stayed overnight in Brindisi, and carried on with our trip the next morning. We were not going to make the 1pm ferry back to Greece, it would mean getting to the port of Igoumenitsa by nightfall, with another five hours to go to reach home. It would have cost another night’s accommodation.

Having seen that it was possible to sleep on the ferry, I decided we’d take another ferry home, which left at 10pm. I told Lorenzo: “Once we’re on the boat, first we will be going to the bathroom, before they become disgusting. Then, we’ll go to the main room and we’ll look for some seats to sleep on”.

Lorenzo looked excited — he tends to greet every plan with natural enthusiasm (the problem being, sometimes I can run out of plans…) Once on the ferry, we did as planned. I was proud of my strategy, now that we would be getting seven or eight hours of sleep. 

But I didn’t count on the piano behind me to put my plan to ruins. A man sat down, and suddenly began to play as if he were at a wedding. I asked him to lower the music: “This is my job,” he replied, adding that he was “only” going to play until one in the morning. Nearby, a group of students, shrieking, began to rehearse their choreographies. So much for catching shut-eye on this overnight ferry.

By then the other seats on the ferry had already been occupied. Lorenzo was agitated, and so was I. Lorenzo is used to silence and reading bedtime stories before sleeping. Otherwise, he does everything he can to stay awake. The scene seemed set for a nightmare of a night to come.

We started to play La Oca, the Game of the Goose, a board game that is similar to Snakes and Ladders. As the pitch of the screaming around us rose, he became calmer. Whenever he was about to win, he’d distract himself by watching the students dancing. Suddenly he said: “It’s too noisy, I can’t sleep like this.”

But immediately after, he took his book about Greek myths out of his rucksack and asked me to read the Battle of Troy story to him. He sat back. I lay down and started to read to him. At some point I closed the book and covered one of his ears. Curled up on the chair, Lorenzo fell asleep faster and with far less resistance than he’d ever done in many nights at home. So much for what I expected to be a ruined night, where he wouldn’t catch a wink of sleep.

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As Lorenzo sleeps, I write this newsletter.

I see another father unsuccessfully making a bid for the music to be lowered. Now that even the students aren’t dancing anymore, what is the point? Not long after, the captain of the ferry emerges and lets the pianist know that he can stop the music sooner tonight.

I am off to bed, and I’ll finish this newsletter tomorrow.

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I’m back, a day later, and at home.

We slept like logs until the ferry pulled into the port of Igoumenitsa. In the 500km we had from port to house, I had questions.

I found some answers to some of those, for example, how on earth did Lorenzo sleep practically next to a booming speaker, and in the middle of such noise. In one of our stops on the way back I read about the stress nap, which seems to be a defence mechanism.

As Lorenzo (thankfully) slept in the car, I thought of how often reality surpasses our expectations. It’s something that fatherhood keeps showing me, but it applies to life in general.

With fatherhood, I sometimes have this feeling that I know what is going to happen. This certainty, many times, only lasts a minute. In reality, in fatherhood as well as in life, there is a need for flexibility which is fundamental. It’s like an exercise in complete flexibility, in order to survive.

Also the acceptance that for the amount of energy we put into thinking about how certain things will go, not only will they not go as we planned for the majority of time, but perhaps also the main thing we’ll achieve is being worn down and disillusioned.

Sleeping on the ferry meant saving on one night’s accommodation, and coming home a day earlier than planned. But just an hour away from home, I got this message from Irene: “León’s just taken his first steps!” It’s something I knew was imminent. But I couldn’t even watch the video she had sent me immediately; I was driving. And so I reflected.

Like his older brother Lorenzo, León also took his first steps at ten months. As with Lorenzo, it was Irene who took that first video. As with Lorenzo, and this time albeit only for an hour, I missed that milestone. So much for me thinking that I would witness León walk for the first time.

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Once again, thank you for reading, commenting, sending mails and sharing this newsletter with others.

Stay well.

A hug,

Nacho

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📣 Nabeelah Shabbir, a member of this community and a friend, edited and improved this newsletter with lots of love. Thanks, Nabeelah! 🙏 If there are mistakes, they are my fault, not hers! (and please forgive me for them!)