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I Hacked My Vacation

Picture this:

White sandy beach. Palm trees swaying in the warm breeze. The faint sound of a steel drum being played somewhere beyond the dunes.

I’m parked on a simple wooden stool at the shanty-bar, parting ways with my last American dollar. The local behind the bar cracks an ice cold beer for me, which I receive graciously.

As I sip my cerveza, an older man takes the stool next to me, and puts in his own order. We get to talking — he’s American too, married forty years, kids grown and out of the house, a successful small business back in Illinois, which he finally sold for a tidy profit of ten million dollars, enough to retire on, and more. He tells me he’s on the first real vacation of his adult life.

“Young man,” the old fella says to me, correctly clocking my virile youth, “can I give you a word of wisdom?”

I oblige, and this is what he says:

“Youth is wasted on the young. Don’t make the same mistakes I did as a young man. Don’t wait until tomorrow to go see the world. You only have one life; make it the best life you can live. Seize the day.”

These words really sat with me as I spent my final hours in this beachside paradise, the end of an idyllic week away from the world. As I watched the hotel maids pack my bags for me (they’ll do it if you ask), I thought about the flight I had ahead of me back to the states, the rainy welcome I was set to receive in New York, and the return to the hum-drum of my banal daily life:

My boring two-story Brooklyn Heights loft. My Victoria’s Secret model girlfriend, whose only topic of conversation lately seems to be about how we “don’t communicate.” My massively viral Instagram meme account @ShitFatIrishGuysDo.

None of it sounded appealing — life back home had revealed itself to be too complex, too fast-paced and messy. The lives we’ve built for ourselves in cities are not lives at all. We spend our nights trapped in tiny cages we call apartments, and our days hiding from the sun, in grey offices full of mundanity and sexual harassment policies.

I realized something at that moment that others on the tail ends of their vacation never seem to be smart enough to know:

You don’t have to go home.

I immediately canceled my flight to LaGuardia, and felt a wave of exhilarating relief wash over me. Excited by the boundless possibilities, I called the maids and told them to unpack my bags, went to the ATM and withdrew another five thousand U.S.D., and then headed out to the beach. The future was unknown, and the world was my oyster.

I spent another languorous week laying out at the resort, and it got me to thinking. I realized that my generation simply doesn’t know how to take a break, how to step back from the world, and truly relax.

My generation doesn’t know how to go on vacation.

Sure we can take a flight, book a hotel, and take a dip in an infinity pool. But we don’t know how to fully release ourselves from the pressures and obligations of daily life back home, and truly get off the grid. A part of us is always stuck at home

As I tanned and toned, I began to wonder what lay beyond the gates of my calm beachside retreat. I decided it was time to venture further into the unknown world — to truly disconnect from “New York me” and find my own peace. With no return ticket, and only a pack on my back, and four more suitcases in the back of the taxi, I left the stately confines of the resort and headed out in search of an authentic experience. If I was going to “seize the day,” there would be no half measures.

I kept a simple diary of my next few days on my iPad, which I think is instructive, surprisingly poignant, and actually quite similar to a great novel in a lot of ways.

—

March 2, 2019

I lay awake on a simple mattress, the sounds of the city still alive outside my window. My heart beats to a rhythm faster than the tambores drums I watched men play in the buzzing town square. Their music is alive with passion and something else…anger? Vengeance?

Today has been revelatory. It’s been incredibly hard, and also brought me incredible bliss.

I waved goodbye to my white-walled resort at four this afternoon, when I told the friendly caballero (cab driver) to keep driving until I told him to stop. Soon, the beachfront paradise was in our rearview, as we ventured inland and away from a world I understood.

The gentle giddy of the old cab, coupled with the warming midday sun, lulled me into a fitful backseat sleep.

When I awoke, the sun had set, and my driver gently shakes me by the shoulder.

“Señor,” he says, “why don’t you get off here.”

We are parked outside what appears to be a grand villa. Perhaps, I speculate, the home of a colonial governor, or even, I shudder, a cartel lord. I soon find out it is, in fact, another hotel.

I tip my driver too generously and check into the new hotel, a far cry from the beachside resort I’d left behind. My suite is small and cramped. My kitchen doesn’t even have a dishwasher! It’s…perfect.

I order a simple steak dinner at one of the two restaurants on the first floor. I watch the town alive outside the restaurant window, men and women dancing; a strange ritualistic tradition of men painted and dressed as statues; musicians on the street who make their living from the coins tossed into their hats. What a simple life these locals lead. I marvel at it.

Do they even know there’s a whole big world out there, hustling and bustling, full of commerce and misery? For their sakes, I hope not.

March 3, 2019

Today I ventured out into the village. I wandered it’s winding streets, feeling the thrill of getting lost, and wondering if in one of these simple storefronts I might find myself.

Around one unmarked corner, I stumbled upon a curious sight: the unmistakable gleaming glassy walls of an Apple Store. How amazing to find a sight so familiar here, thousands of miles away, in a land so unfamiliar and strange.

I suppose the lesson of the day is that there is as much that unites us as there is that divides. Even in a place as new and foreign as this.

It’s getting late as I type this on my new iPad Pro. I’m bathed in its cool blue light, as I push away at the remains of my picked-over meager room service. Slumber calls, and further adventure awaits me tomorrow, I’m sure.

March 4, 2019

I opted out of breakfast at the hotel this morning, heading out instead on an early morning run. Nothing clears my head like a run. I’m not used to using the metric system for everything, but I believe if I do the math, I ran about fifteen miles, in just over an hour.

Having worked up both a sweat and an appetite, I spot a charming bakery. Inside, at the counter, I‘m greeted by one of the most gorgeous women I’ve ever seen. She’s a local, not more than twenty-one, if I had to guess. I wonder, does her father own the place, and work her to the bone? Does she work to support a family of her own at home?

Her beauty is both exotic and alluringly pedestrian. She’s a true woman of the land, I think, a worker. Her eyes are gorgeous dark honey almonds, her hair as brown as the cacao bean, a few whisps have fallen out of her loose bun, the most utilitarian of updos. Her ample bosom fills out her apron, but I hardly notice, as her face has just lit up with a small, simple smile.

Home in New York, smiles are so full of teeth, garish and vulgar. Her smile is subtle, an upcurled turn of the corner of the mouth, her fulls nubile lips closed — it reminds me of The Mona Lisa, a painting that I have taken a selfie with. With that simple smile, she says a hundred thousand words, and I feel as though I know more about her than I could learn from my girlfriend back home in a lifetime. Her smile doesn’t need teeth to be beautiful.

“What can I get you?” she asks, in, I’m surprised to discover, passable English.

Is it possible to fall in love at first sight? I don’t know. I don’t even know if I believe in “love,” as we’ve defined it in the West. What is it? A rush of endorphins and a hope for a future together? If you want to call that love, sure be my guest. I’d prefer to live in the moment with my partner rather than worry about silly words.

But whatever that feeling is, I have it for this girl. I want to sweep her up in my arms right now. I want to carry her through the threshold of my suite. I want to tear her apron off, and ravish her. I want to explore her foreign curves in the same way I’ve explored these streets and avenidas. I want to smoke cigarettes with her, naked on my suite’s private terrace, and discuss life and death and sex and old movies and music. Then I want to make love to her again, and again, and again, and again. I want to take her out of this hellish country, and give her the life she deserves in America. I want to take her to parties, and watch my friends gawk and whisper behind my back, wondering where I discovered this beauty-of-beauties. They can gossip all they want, she and I will have slipped into the coat closet to make love again.

Hell, I could make love to her right here in this bakery.

But I don’t. I simply return the smile, and say my order:

“One Cinnabón, please.”

In another life, perhaps, this enchantress and I would live happily ever after. I fear our worlds are too different. I fear, more than anything, that the world wouldn’t be ready for us yet.

March 5, 2019

I check my iPad first thing in the morning, and I have a message from my friend Joshua Kushner — “What’s up my dude? Where are you?”

(For those of you hearing that name and wondering, don’t worry, I’m only friends with the good Kushners. Tony’s a prick and I’ve fallen asleep during every major production of Angels in America).

I do miss New York, and my life I left there.

My time integrating with the locals has been exhilarating and has opened up my view of the world. I feel like a more worldly person, and know that I could now drop into almost any culture, and adapt and thrive. In just a few days, my Spanish has gotten muy bueno enough that I think most people I interact with likely assume I am a local.

But the last few days have also been exhausting. I’ve been pushed out my comfort zone, and felt my own values and upbringing challenged in a way that does feel somewhat threatening. While I wouldn’t trade the experience of this week for the world, I know it’s time to go home. I miss my own bed. I miss the Soho House. I miss my gym (the closest thing to a good gym I was able to find here was an Equinox). Hell, I even miss my bank.

The experiences I have had here will live with me forever, and I know I will bring a part of the person I am on vacation home with me. I’ve learned to live this slower, more relaxed life. I’ve learned how to fully let go. I’ve seized the day. This place has made me better, and I have made it better.

But it’s time to go home.

—

So I bought a ticket home, and before I knew it, I was leaving this land I’d learned to call my own. I took one last look at this little country I was now so familiar with, hoping I could return some day. Soon, I’d have to respond to all the worried texts I’d been receiving from my girlfriend every day a week, and the tired churn of my old life would begin again. But for one last moment, I was at peace.

At the airport, the gate agent smiled and asked:

“How was your stay in the Spanish Riviera?”

I pause for a moment to think. Harrowing? Incredible? Patience-testing? Indescribable? How can I sum up this lifetime of experiences I have lived in a single word, I wonder.

Then it hits me:

“Life changing.”

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