WHEN YOU’RE WITH THE ONE YOU LOVE

By Linda Lovely

By the time you’re eligible for Medicare, you’ve hopefully treated yourself to dozens of vacations. I know I have, and I can’t recall a bad one. That should make it tough to pick a favorite vacation for this month’s blog theme. Right? Wrong.

     My all-time best vacation is the first one I took with my husband.

     It was April. We flew from snowy Rochester, New York, where we lived at the time, to a Club Med resort in the Caribbean on the island of Martinique. We traded highways edged with piles of dirty snow to roads lined with palm trees, sand, and blue ocean. We shucked winter coats and wore swimsuits to breakfast. We toasted in bright sunshine. Frolicked in warm water.  We tasted fruits we’d never seen before. We dined at eight-person tables with strangers from France and the Bronx, England and Chicago. We laughed with new friends. We learned to sail. We strolled on a nude beach. We drank large quantities of wine. We snorkeled and waterskied. We applauded the nightly entertainment. We danced under a starry sky. We never once opened our wallets or thought about what anything cost—food, wine, and any sport you were game to try were included in the flat price.

     It was enchanting, invigorating, freeing.  

All-female sailing crew for finale regatta. I'm standing center.

     Those memories remain vivid. Of course, new love weighs heavily in this vacation’s favor. I’m sure it made me more open to new experiences, to adventures we could share.  The many firsts also made it special. I’d never been to the Caribbean. Sailing and snorkeling in the ocean were new, exhilarating experiences. And Martinique is the only place I’ve ever happened upon a nude beach.

     One European fellow told me he could always tell who the Americans on a nude beach were. When they engaged in conversation, they always stared into the other person’s eyes in an attempt to censor the automatic tendency for their gaze to roam. He was right.

My husband at helm.

     At Club Med, I remember sitting at a table occupied by four English speakers and four French speakers, and I was the only person silly enough to admit to some knowledge of the other language. So an American gentleman prompted me to inquire of the Frenchman how he would ask a lady to sleep with him.

     His answer? “Ah, but a Frenchman doesn’t need to ask.”

     This wasn’t the only Club Med vacation my husband and I enjoyed, but it will always be the best. New love makes anyplace magical.

     Do you remember your first vacation with a new love?