I’m supposed to be in Ireland right now. Last Thanksgiving we bought not only Aer Lingus tickets from Denver to Dublin but also Snow Patrol concert tickets. Mr. Trent and I have been fans of these guys since our dating days more than 20 years ago. Going to see them live at St. Annes Park was what I wanted for Christmas. We happily looked forward to this trip all January, February, March, and April.
And then in May we got sick. A tenacious cold came through our house. We’d think we were getting better, and then it would come roaring back. It was a cold of lots of false summits at a time of year where there is a lot of summiting to do. Ballet dress rehearsals and recitals. School play tech week and performances. So many finals and AP Tests. End of school year projects. Promo packets and deadlines at the day jobs. The list continually rises to meet you in the Maycember slide. So last week, after I thought I’d bested this cold, it mutated into laryngitis. I dragged myself to the doctor six days before the trip and hoarsely whispered for help. “Antibiotics will get you on that plane. Don’t you worry,” she said.
But then our youngest caught the cold again–this time with a fever and very sticky, very persistent cough. We took our little dude to the pediatrician and the writing was on the wall. Acute viral infection… Should not get on a plane… Risk to self and other passengers. By that afternoon Mr. Trent had symptoms too.
So we canceled our trip. We’ll see Ireland and Snow Patrol another time. The Book of Kells, the Blarney stone, the lost Caravaggio, the ring of Kerry, and Killarney NP aren’t going anywhere. It’s a bummer, but it’s okay. Travelers insurance (Chase Sapphire Preferred FTW) means we aren’t out $$$$. It’s O.K. This has happened before in the Trent Home. Both our kids got epically sick during a pertussis flare Thanksgiving 2024 when we had tickets to Amsterdam, and even though they are both vaccinated, we could not fly until we ruled out pertussis with labs which meant we had to cancel. It’s okay. We went to Amsterdam last summer on our Iceland, Amsterdam, Bruges, Copenhagen, and Billund trip and had a marvelous time.
Canceling our trip was the right call. Everyone has benefited from sleeping soundly in their own beds these last couple of days, but canceling has also been a complete and total bummer. We were looking forward to this vacation. We love to travel. The Trents have worked really hard this school year. A change of scene, a change of pace, and some epic music in the park would not go amiss. We’re all sad. My daughter, who is now a rising Junior in HS, is especially gutted. Heavy sighs were made for times like these.
And so are books. I’ve been escaping to early nineteenth century Europe with my traveling companion Lord B in Andrew Stauffer’s Byron: A Life in Ten Letters. I was reading about his time in Venice this morning and thinking about the day I spent there and the many flavors of gelato that I consumed. Yesterday, I read the chapter about his haunted summer with the Shelly trio and reminisced fondly about my summer trip to Switzerland. Byron was…complicated, a diva, a person I feel both sympathy and revulsion for… Reading about how essential travel was to his literary process is soothing. Imagining his rowboat on Lake Geneva during a storm as we convalesce is palliative. It’s not the escape I chose, but it is an escape I will happily take.
Books have been an escape for me often in my life. They’re accessible when the best laid plans fail. They can be consumed regardless of present health. Their barriers to entry are minimal, and the budget needed for their enjoyment is negligible with access to public libraries. Yay for books. Yay for escapes that are forever at our fingertips.