Partner and I both like to travel, but not in the same way. Partner likes thinking about it, fantasizing about it, planning it. I loathe all of the foregoing. I'm a nervous person, and I'm never completely comfortable until I arrive at my destination. But we work it out somehow.
We get away for small trips from time to time: Boston, New York, Cape Cod, the Berkshires. We've gone to Ireland once, and to the Northwest several times (there's a Williams family reunion every summer, and it's kind of a hoot to see all the cousins, and Partner, bless him, puts up with it). The Northwest is very pretty: mountains, forests, ocean. But it's not my home anymore. I love going, but it's a bittersweet trip for me.
Once in a while we go to northern New England. I'm partial to Vermont, especially Burlington: it's hippyish and small and cheerful, and Lake Champlain is beautiful, and none of the buildings are taller than a couple of stories. New Hampshire's okay, but it feels like a northward continuation of Massachusetts. Maine looks just the way it does in the tourist brochures.
But now retirement is looming, and (as I said) Partner likes to plan ahead. “Where do you want to go when we retire?” he keeps asking me.
I know what he wants me to say. He wants me to say Hawaii, Florida, Key West, Palm Springs, Palm Beach. He likes warmth and sun and SPF 1000.
I prefer unusual destinations. I also like screwing with people. “Mali,” I say. “Timbuktu. It's nice and sunny there, so you should like that. Besides, I always regretted that I never went to Timbuktu when I was in Africa.”
“They kidnap people there,” he says. “And then they eat them. Forget it.”
“Senegal,” I say.
“Malaria. Schistosomiasis.”
“Central Asia.”
“You've already been there. Also political unrest. Also bubonic plague.”
“Laos,” I say evilly. “Bolivia. Chad.”
“Never in a million years.”
So you see our fix.
Naturally I will get my way. But it will take time, and guile.
(I hope he doesn't read this.)
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