Tourists, Madness, Coffee, and Stranger Things

Somewhere between tourists and madness, coffee and Stranger Things, I found myself coming back to the water.

A Journey to the Seaside: Embracing Imperfection

It was sometime in fall when we decided to take a trip to the seaside in the last week of December. My sister chirped on the phone, “It would be Christmas time and just perfect to unwind and let your hair down a little.” A wicked thought popped into my head—my husband doesn’t have any hair. How does he let his long-disappeared hair down? Of course, it’s just a metaphor.Silly me.

The Road Ahead

Anyway, heuristic problems aside, December rolled by. Before we knew it, we were lugging bags down the stairway and loading them into the car. I sat behind the wheel, readying myself for the long drive ahead — 1,000 km and counting.

Did I mention the bad roads, holiday-season traffic, rough terrain, and everything that could go wrong? I chalk this up to a professional hazard from years of working in assurance and compliance — a Wuthering Heights–Earnshaw tendency to brood over what might unravel.

We were a motley crew: one gent, one curious boy, a charmingly calm canine, and yours faithfully.

The drive was uneventful, barring the relentless high beams of oncoming traffic. The worst offenders were the monstrous SUVs with their off-market auxiliary lights and neon buses blinking like oversized disco balls — ready, it seemed, to open a portal into the Upside Down. Life is stranger than fiction. (Yes, I am a devoted Stranger Things fan. The references are unavoidable.)

Arrival at the Villa

After 1,000 km, we rolled into the riverside villa we had rented for the week. Tucked inside a quiet community of expats and tourists, it was far from the madding crowd — the perfect setting to reflect and reset.

The canine, I must report, behaved impeccably. No tantrums. No messes. If only we humans were as instinctively empathetic — the world would be a softer place.

Mornings by the River

Mornings were blissful. Coffee by the river on a stone seat, always a book in hand.

I finished Rosemary’s Baby and Frederick Forsyth’s The Odessa File — two vastly different worlds, and I was content straddling the space between horror and history.

The quietly flowing river, the ferry steaming downstream — everything felt designed for contemplation. After breakfast came long walks to the beach, miles of sand stretching endlessly before us.

The gentle surf and rhythmic crash of waves were enough to drown out the world outside — and within.

The Magic of Water

What is it about water that feels so magnetic?

Even amid loud tourists, beach vendors, and shacks blasting music, you are drawn to it. You want to dissolve into its vastness.

A wash of blue and grey reflecting the sky above and the shifting surface below — it soothed in ways beyond logic. Walking along the edge with Coffee, my cream-colored Shih Tzu, I felt its quiet pull.

The child in me hoped for a message in a bottle — a sea-delivered Swiggy, perhaps. Not in ten minutes, though. Quick commerce has spoiled us all.

Then, gently, a realization drifted in with the breeze: this very moment was life in miniature — layered, imperfect, shaped by time and experience.

Embracing Imperfection

We are our harshest critics, holding ourselves to standards that feel non-negotiable. While striving for excellence is noble, obsessing over perfection is exhausting.

Life is not a matinee with a fixed ending. It unfolds — sometimes unpredictably — and often asks us to choose again.

We have more agency than we admit.

Life is more than mere existence. Yes, there are curveballs to dodge and slippery slopes to avoid. But in navigating them, let’s not shrink ourselves to fit expectations.

There is quiet power in solitude. In sitting with the parts of us shaped by rejection, shame, fear, and growth.

Evening Reflections

I kept returning to the water each evening. It softened the harsh inner voice, the one that measures and critiques.

So I let the moments be — imperfect, but enough.

I promised myself I would return next year. To the water. To the quiet. To myself.

Gratitude

Gratitude closes this chapter.

To my family — for making the trip possible, and memorable.

To Coffee — my delightful Shih Tzu, who identifies more as a cat than a dog. Now, whether that qualifies as woke, I cannot say. For now, I am content to let things be.

In the end, it’s the little moments—the laughter, the quiet, the water—that shape us. So here’s to more adventures, more reflections, and more time by the water.