24/7

From where I am sitting right now, at the kitchen table in the home where I grew up in Cincinnati, I very plainly can see some cracks in the fading ivory paint on the doorway that leads to the living room. And on both sides of the posts of this home that my mother and father lovingly restored in the early 1960s are visible pencil markings. Since my father never thought of selling this house he wasn’t terribly interested in how these pencil markings would affect the re-sale value of the house. And although my mother, in her heyday, was an inveterate cleaner, she never attempted to wipe these very visible marks off these posts. If you stare closely, you notice the writing beside the horizontal scrawls. They denote birthdays. On the left post are markings with the birthday of October 4, and on the right post markings with the birthday of October 30. Every year on our respective birthdays, October 4 and October 30, my sister and I would stand and get measured at the post, and the thick pencil marking would denote our height at that moment in our lives. I think the markings began around 1972 and continued up until the mid-1980s when both of us were out of high school and into college. As I stare at the left post the biggest spread comes between ages 12 and 13; uh-oh, the difference between ages 13 and 14 is the greatest! Did I really grow that much in one year? We walk by these posts all the time when we are in this house at 2460 Montana and it is one of my favorite features of the house. These markings on our birthday become a concrete and sentimental way to mark the passage of time and the changes in our lives. Since it is in a doorway, the traditional post-and-lintel way of supporting a structure, it is also a metaphor of how we have supported our family over the years (or maybe vice versa). We families do it all the time—we use different things, different ways to commemorate the passages of time and reflect on the changes in our lives.

Yes, I am still on summer vacation! This has been the longest summer vacation I have enjoyed in four years (I am not complaining!). In 2007 I went back to school on July 30th, and in 2008 and 2009 I left around August 14. This year is longer because the officials at KA decided that we should try and start school after the holy month of Ramadan since it would afford families a better way to celebrate the fasts and iftars (breaking of the fast) without the nuisance of school. So I will go back to Jordan a week from right now. I will have two weeks to work with the new teachers coming to KA (cue the excitement and the nervousness akin to what I felt three years ago!) Then the students will come for orientation and the school year will finally get underway. But before I head back to Jordan and get back in the routines and structures of school life, it is time to end my summer vacation from the blog.

A few weeks ago I came back from a trip with my family where I was literally with them for 24 hours a day for seven days…hence the blog entry title of 24/7…Now I am not going to spend much time on such commonplace observations such as, “Can you believe six people really spent 24 hours a day for seven days? What would you do? Is that a vacation? What happens to a family on a trip like that???” It was what you would imagine. It was marvelous. It was close quarters. It was exceptionally planned (by my sister). It was hot. Occasionally it was tense. It was magical. It was memorable. There. See—you thought you would read an invective of “Can you believe he/she did this all week?????”

So for 24 hours a day for seven days we communed in Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. (Now do you see why I noted the heat? August in Florida??? Yes, it was hot and humid. ‘Nuff said.)

This was not our first time to enjoy the luxuries of Disney World. Oh, no. Since my sister “re-discovered” Disney World in 2004, lo just a few years ago, we have been there…ahem…five times! She loves it. We love it. I went to Disney World once as a child, at age 9, and I did not go again until age 39. But this year, as we packed up again for our seven days at the Polynesian (my sister loves that property so much, we have stayed there each of the five times at Disney since 2004. They practically know her by name—yes ma’am, we will try and accommodate you in the Fiji building!.) I became a bit more reflective about these trips to Disney World. Since we have gone there in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, and now 2010, these trips have become like the pencil markings on the post in our family kitchen. (Well, more expensive pencil markings.) These trips to Disney, in retrospect at least, offer us a chance to think about the changes in our lives, both personally, and as a family.

In 2004, our first trip, Jack and Emma were younger, obviously. Jack was just about 26 months and Emma was about to turn 6. She was in full-blown princess mode (meaning the Disney princesses). Steve and I were very settled in our professions—he having been at his company for 15 successful years, and I having been at Hackley in New York for 8 years. As I look back on it, 2004 was a year for me of being very settled and comfortable. I had been department head for six years, my routine in New York was well-established, I conducted exciting trips abroad with students (that spring a memorable one to Vietnam), I had stumbled into the AP Art History that had become such an exciting course, and I had just graduated a senior class that had been at the cutting edge of all the changes I had made in the history curriculum for the previous five years. Truth be told, I had recently confessed to a friend’s wife that I had actually met all the goals I had set for my tenure at Hackley. I had just come back from a trip out west with my veteran and dear travel companions Anne and Diane (imagine a summer with both Las Vegas and Disney World!! Jeez! What a summer of kitschy extravaganzas!). Jack did not speak in many full sentences yet, although he delighted in telling people that “Snow White kissed me on the forehead!” Emma’s priceless expression as we entered Main Street USA on that first day as she beheld Cinderella’s castle made the entire trip worthwhile. “It’s real,” she sighed, and her eyes sparkled. Our mother and father did not come on this trip. My mother’s MS had progressed so that traveling was simply too hard. We never considered that we should all 7 go. The MS did not claim her humor or her spunk, but the MS did win over traveling. But Elizabeth made sure they did not totally miss out: we took hundreds of pictures and I narrated a video of our discoveries for them to see. Elizabeth also purchased mouse ears for everyone in the family and when we returned home we took a great family photo of all 7 of us with Mickey Mouse ears and huge smiles. We reminisced about our trip in the 1970s as a family and compared the changes we had seen that summer since our 70s childhood visit. We knew we would go back to Disney World, but since it had taken us 30 years to return we had no idea when.

By the time we made our return trip, two summers later, in 2006, more had changed than just the height and verbal abilities of Emma and Jack. For those in the know, 2005 was the year when (how does one describe it in a phrase?) some student bad behavior altered my status at Hackley and I was not exactly on top of the world anymore. But much more importantly, about two months before our return trip to Disney World in 2006, our mother had passed away, and we all were still affected by that loss. We asked our father to join us, but he demurred. I suppose it would only have served to remind us all why he had been able to join us. So this trip was one in which we looked at the trip and reflected on how my mother would have commented on it, how she would have been moved by the creativity and beauty of the parks, and how her grandchildren enjoyed the spectacle and wonder of the attractions.

Lo and behold we returned the next summer and two things stand out for us on the 2007 odyssey to Disney: my father joined us and I was about to move to Jordan a week after the trip. We enjoyed hearing our father’s impressions of the Disney beast and how it had grown and morphed since the 1970s and we looked for as many benches as possible, his favorite ride as we have joked. Underlying the trip for me at least, was this nervous bubble that I was about to move to Jordan. Just a month before we had packed everything up in New York, put 90% of my life in storage in Cincinnati, and I was about to set out for the Middle Eastern unknown. Jack was 5 and Emma almost 9, and a perfect age to enjoy all of the Disney narratives.

Since you have found the blog, you have dozens upon dozens of entries commenting on how that move went to Jordan in 2007! In the middle of my second year in Jordan we found ourselves with a longer December break than usual (a reflection of the Muslim holidays and how they move with the moon). We decided to take advantage of that long break and headed to Disney World at a non-hot, non-humid time of the year, in December, 2008. It was such an exciting change to see what they do for the Christmas holidays in what they call “the happiest place on earth,” with the incredible decorations. The six of us went—no one new this time, and it was a time of almost solace for our family.

So this time, August 2010, we are back again at the Polynesian. Emma is nearly 12, and decidedly in the full flowering of tween-dom. Jack is saying things like, “But we have to preserve her dignity,” which is more articulate than in 2004! None of us has a major move impending, but the children are on the cusp of major changes in their lives (Emma has already made those great leaps in height that would cause a major yawn on the post in our kitchen!). Since nothing was incredibly new to us, and since we are old-hands at the rides and everything there, I spent time marveling at the creative power of the Disney authorities. The rides and attractions are breathtaking, and their greatness rests in their narrative power. The rides, or at least the ones we visited, are not just thrill-seeking, speedy amusement park rides. They are testaments to the narratives of the stories Disney has peddled these 80-some years. Everything from the Peter Pan ride in Magic Kingdom to Expedition Everest in Animal Kingdom to Toy Story 3 in Hollywood Studios, it is about the details of taking the participant through a story, checking the details, infusing it with the wonder of a great journey and the thrill of discovery. I have nothing but praise for the parks. The hotels and food are expensive, sure, but those parks are a testament to ingenuity and wonder. One of my favorite attractions was in Disney Quest, off the beaten track, where you can design your own roller-coaster and then ride in a simulator taking you on your very own ride. Eight-year old Jack chose the highest level of “thrills and speed” and he very carefully worked on the design and then got to enjoy a simulation of his own invention. That is a far cry from Jack's excitement over the Dumbo Ride in 2004. But really, I guess it is not. In 2004, Dumbo was full of discovery and smiles and excitement for a two-year old..

Our family can mark the passage and maturation of the discoveries and insights through our trips to the Disney capitalist machine. As we left, I wondered, where will we be at the next time we visit? It is inevitable now that there will be a next time. But how long away? How tall will Emma and Jack be? Will I still be in Jordan? Where will I live? What will I do? How will the teen years affect the family? Will the bench warmer be up for climbing the 10 stories up to the inner-tube slide as he did so gamely this summer? What will we be thinking about? Worrying about? Loving? What will cause us wonder?

Well, for right now, I will focus on my last week of summer. Enjoying the family and looking toward getting on the plane a week from right now and beginning year four in Jordan.