Reviving summer vacations as an adult
Recognising their worth amid the chaos of an adult life
It’s 2.07 pm, on a Thursday afternoon in May. The year is 2005, schools are closed, Dehradun’s heat has nearly hit its peak, and dust storms have begun frequenting our lawns. The menacing clouds bring respite from the dry heat along with the powerful gales that threaten to empty the heavy-mango laden trees of their fruit. As kids, we rejoice in the sudden change of weather, while running to pick drying clothes from the line. Erratic power cuts, disco lighting in the sky and inside our homes, loud banging of doors and windows - all play orchestra, while we await nothing in particular. Summer vacations have officially begun.
It’s 2022, and earlier this week, I witnessed the same phenomenon, this time with the addition of a gushing Gulmohar tree outside my parents’ home playing muse to the enchanting wind, while I used my smartphone to capture this effervescent moment.
I am home and reliving my summer vacations.
Author Eudora Welty once wrote:
The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order, a timetable not necessarily — perhaps not possibly — chronological. The time as we know it subjectively is often the chronology that stories and novels follow: it is the continuous thread of revelation.
Summer vacations have always been an occurrence limited to one’s years as a student. During my undergrad years in Delhi, I was always home for summers, but with a dread of missing out on life, as apparently that was taking place where college was. Over the years, as I moved out of the country and returned on several occasions, summers were short, time-bound, with a return ticket in hand. But above all, there was a sense of faint dread that accompanied each visit. That perhaps with each passing year, this holiday would be the last, because big life decisions, lifestyle changes and moves would come in the way.
And that did happen.
Much has changed - for starters, I’m no longer in school and do not officially get two months off every year. My parents have grown older, and siblings have different schedules and routines. My grandparents are no longer alive. My sister has a cat. The mango tree has grown older and the lychee tree no longer bears a lot of fruit. The Mussoorie range is not visible from home anymore, thanks to the residential towers that have besmirched the view. Power cuts are manageable. The heat waves are longer. The streets are noisier.
And yet, somethings are simply the same, like placed inside a time capsule. The afternoons in my bedroom are quiet with only the steady purring of the ceiling fan. Two large windows with iron rods and mesh net adorn the room and offer just the perfect daylight to catch a siesta. A motorbike, kids hurling stones at the mango tree, azaan and gurbani punctuate at different intervals. I lie in my bed, working and then pause to reflect the exactness of these moments with summer vacations in my former years.
In essence, summer vacation is a cumulation of moments and emotions that I have paid attention to, recognised how they nourish me, and worked towards recreating them.
As a woman in my 30s, I feel relieved writing this, knowing that summer vacations can always be here. That my choice of walking away from patriarchal expectations and circumstances in my 20s, has given me time as an adult at my parents’ place. There are expectations to meet, but those have been set by me and not someone else. I am home for some time, before I return to my life as an artist, a community builder, a corporate professional, among other things. This summer vacation does not end when school reopens, rather when my heart is full.
While I am home for a short while, the magnitude of its joy far surpasses the time spent here. Identifying such aspects of my childhood and incorporating them into adult life brings me joy, confidence, and clarity to forge ahead.
As the dust storms gather, I make short videos as vain attempts to capture some of these aspects and keep them in my treasure trove of memories. Like a character out of Ruskin Bond’s stories, summer vacations are unequivocally a trademark of one’s self-hood. They are the reason old board games can be dusted and played (along with daily Wordle), new work stations built, personal boundaries readjusted, late night ice creams resumed, future plans discussed, and challenging conversations convened within the comfort of one’s childhood home.
Summer vacations are being relived as an adult, despite the adult life.
Mariyam Haider is a researcher-writer and spoken word artist, based in Singapore. Her work and other writings can be found in the About section.