Reflections on Identity
A Mother on Vacation Without Her Children
Learning How to Be Independent of My Children
I watch from my lounge chair as a young girl enters the water, exploding into it. She is not tentative, as I always am, letting my feet acclimate to the cool wet sand, then edging forward so the waves cover just my toes, then ankles, then up to my knees. I wince with every lap of the water, even here in Barbados where the water is a translucent turquoise and just a tad chiller than lukewarm.
But not this girl. She is maybe seven, fine blonde hair tucked into a bubblegum-pink sunhat that is strapped beneath her chin, arms covered in a lavender polka-dotted swimshirt. Her parents have dressed her carefully and I feel an instant pang of guilt for how I have failed my kids in this department — my kids in tiny ruffled bikinis who went hatless, who I halfheartedly chased after with cans of spray-on sunscreen. They were not the pale tow-headed children whose cheeks turn pink instantaneously in the sun, my children — they bronzed, getting darker and coppery. I could be careless with their sun protection, unlike their friends whose sunscreen application had to be done with scientific precision lest I return them to their families aglow, unwarranted pride redolent in my words, “sorry, my kids never burn.”
