We had a lovely week at Pawleys Island, SC, as usual. Each year, for five years in a row, we've gone to the Sea View Inn for a certain week in late July. It's family week in that kids are half price, but also in that the tone of the inn changes from a more quiet and contemplative retreat to a place that can accommodate the boisterousness of children on the beach. Since the same people tend to come that week, over the years we've gotten attached to them, and the kids have developed slow-moving friendships with the other kids.
I should also add that when Ben's mother was a child, she went to the Sea View Inn, and when Ben was growing up he and his family went to the Tip Top Inn, down the way, which was later wiped out in Hurricane Hugo. That is to say, going to Pawleys in the summer is something of a long-standing tradition in his family, and now in ours.
That's what makes what happened all the more stunning and painful.
We've been exiled.
On the way home we reflected on how smoothly the week had gone, compared to last year when I was so sick I was practically an invalid, and the year before when Ben had a miserable work issue hanging over him the whole time. I felt that, at nearly four years old, Elias was getting a lot easier to manage. And Isaac, a big seven, could roam freely with the kids his age. I loved the moments when I was sitting on the beach, reading War and Peace (I read the first 300 pages of the new Pevear/Volokhonsky translation and it's excellent!), and I could look over and see one boy digging holes in the sand, while the other attempted to surf. Ben caught a jelly fish in a bucket , and I found a huge live conch. Someone else caught starfish, and a broken-off leg walked away by itself. All around a lovely time at the sea side. So I thought.
Then, after we'd been home for a day or two, we got this stunning e-mail. It said that our reservation will not be honored next year. There have been complaints about our lack of supervision of the kids, and therefore we've gotten the boot.
Initially, my reaction was complete shock. I tried to call Ben but he was in a meeting, and the hour or two before I could reach him felt very long to me. I went into a shame spiral– we are horrible parents and have raised two monsters. Then I went to the opposite extreme– they are totally good and normal boys and the inn is run by child-hating idiots, and they were in the ocean the whole time, what could they possibly have done?? And I didn't like it there that much anyway!
Then I started reviewing… they were in the ocean or on the beach probably 75% of their waking hours.