The best of everything

Europe loves Speedos so much

It’s important to be able to embrace and enjoy even very corny things.

What’s “the best?” Of course it exists, and it’s pleasant to stumble upon, but I’m not going to spend my life looking only for the best of things at the expense on missing out on other really wonderful or silly things that make me happy. I don’t want to have tastes too refined for joyful foolishness.

I say this because of the cruise. I was concerned, very concerned that it would be an irritating waste of my time to spend two weeks on a boat full of fat Americans, stuffing my face with mass-produced buffet spaghetti instead of sampling local cuisine and traveling the way I like to.

Instead it was the most fun ever. Much more diverse than I ever expected. So much to do! Silly poolside activities and samba lessons, scavenger hunts, karaoke, bingo, a club every night. And each day at port was a little mini-exercise in the kind of travel I like, pushing my mom and sister to do the public transportation thing instead of relying on ship-arranged transport or private taxis. It was good for us to make decisions together about what we wanted to do, and to have the time restraints imposed by the call for all-aboard to keep us from overdoing it.

The cruise was a perfect place to work on Marina’s opposite of loneliness. For two weeks a bunch of strangers actually were all in literally the same boat, living and eating and playing side by side.

The thing I enjoyed the most about the cruise overall was bonding with fellow passengers. There was a couple from Mississippi that loved to dance, maybe in their late 50s or early 60s. Whenever there was music, I joined them on the dance floor to huge smiles, hugs, and high fives. Another couple composed of a big bellied woman and her husband like a dressed asparagus made us one rug-cutting fivesome.

There were families we spent days with, saving lounge chairs by the pool for each other and reserving full booths for bingo. There was an old Spanish man who had been married for 67 years, and in 67 years he could never get his wife to dance. He was shuffling and shaking his booty at every event by himself. By himself until I joined him, at least.

I thought a lot about myself. In conflicts with my sister I was told that it’s always “the Jessica Show” and that that can be a lot to deal with. Irritating. Too much to handle sometimes. She’s right, it is the Jessica Show. I am a lot.

I’ve decided it’s mostly good and not something I want to change. It brings people together, it makes people laugh and loosens them up. I have nothing to lose, I have no shame and little pride. It’s easy for me to say sorry and accept apologies. It’s easy for me to sidestep awkward and ignore sarcasm. I met someone like me, someone older who has been running his own Show for a lot longer than I have. We found common ground and I’m not turning back from his assurances that this way is a good way, a loving way and not a selfish, attention seeking way at its core. It’s a way of being that means well. I hope other people will understand.

Anyway. Here are the few notes I had from Cannes:

The yachts in port were huge, enormous, ridiculous. How much boat can a private citizen use at once?

Every building looked to me like an ancient, crumbling cake. Pastel plaster fading into the sea, indifferent to our shopping and searching for croissants.

They called it a playground for the rich and beautiful, but we are all so much more the same than we are different. We play the same ways, just on different scales.

Saying “Bonjour!” over and over made us feel like we were in the intro sequence from “Beauty and the Beast.”

Cannes was basically a wash. We have Fifth Avenue in New York; the facade of a Dior store doesn’t exactly thrill me. The best part of the day was getting a bunch of t-shirts on sale for 3 euro each. I promptly ruined one of them by banging into a holy oil-coated candelabra in a church in Athens.