Gathering

Every few years my parents gather their daughters and sons-in-law and grandchildren from hither and yon for a grand family vacation. They rent a house big enough to hold us all; the house is usually on a beach where we can swim and hunt for critters and roast marshmallows over bonfires. My dad likes to do things so he usually plans expeditions during the day – fishing, sailing, snorkeling: whatever there is to do in this place – and we kids & grandkids join or don't. In the evenings we gather for dinner and then play games or just, you know, hang out. My sister Joie and I fight at least once, and our little sister diffuses a fight a least once, and each grandchild melts down a number of times in inverse relation to his or her age.

It is always absolutely lovely.

This year we stayed in a house in Haena, on Kauai's north shore. Two years ago we went to Orcas Island, in the San Juans. Three years before that we stayed in a house a little ways from Cancun, Mexico. Ten years ago, when I was pregnant for the first time and my littlest sister engaged, we also went to Mexico.

After each of these trips there's a flurry of email and phone calls and, this year, text messages: continuing the laughing and joking that began on the beach when we were all, for a little while, together.