Making the Best of a Tight Summer
HAVANA TIMES – Children wait for summer as if it were a gift, one of those with huge bows, shiny paper, and glitter. As parents, we wish we had a box full of surprises, beach trips, ice cream, outings, and laughter. After a year full of blackouts, long lines, and hardships, rest becomes a physical and emotional necessity.
Since July began, I kept wondering how to make the most of the holidays when the money barely covers the basics. But my husband knew exactly what he wanted: “Tata, let’s give our daughter a treat; she needs to get out of the routine, be around other people, have fun.”
I agreed with him. A teenager can’t live only on school assignments, drawings, peeling walls, and the company of adults who talk about nothing but “how bad things are.”
We wanted this summer to be therapy against the confinement and weight of everyday life. So, we jumped into adventure, even though our pockets were thinner than we wished, and we came up with a small, fun plan that still fit within our means.
Together with a friend, we went to the river every afternoon. The cool water ran over the rocks, the laughter mingled with the splashing, and the smell of wet grass reminded us that while not everything was right, there was still beauty around us. The small inflatable pool at a friends’ house was another breath of fresh air. Our daughter played there with her friend, the sun on her skin, and the cool water feeding her smile.
One night we took her to the disco. It was an attempt to push her out of her comfort zone. For her, it was a whole new world. Among colored lights and loud music, she discovered that you could dance and laugh among strangers as a way of opening the door to other people. Only she turned out to be more like me than I expected and preferred to end the night in the park, chatting, sharing music, stories, and laughter.
The sea never fails. The waves crash on the shore, the hot sand forces your feet to move, the salty smell in the breeze, the horizon of infinite blue trying in vain to erase the worries, giving you the feeling that there’s something beyond, something better. The beach was, of course, the jewel of the plan.
Our list of activities wasn’t long or spectacular; we improvised as we went along. It took a part of the budget we had set aside for investing in our fish shop. At first, this worried me, but we still had plenty of products in stock, and in the end, the expense was worth it.
In this country, life is more bitter than coffee without sugar, so you have to find a way to sweeten it, even if it’s just on the riverbank or in the middle of the waves. Life can’t be only about work, problems, or bills that don’t add up. Those small moments are anchors that hold us when everything else seems to wobble.
Sometimes you don’t need full suitcases, a luxury hotel, or an expensive trip. The most valuable thing we can give our children—and ourselves—is real time, laughter, and the absolute certainty that even with just enough, you can live a summer full of memories. In the end, what remains isn’t how much the outing cost but everything we shared while living it.
Read more from the diary of Fabiana del Valle here on Havana Times.