If you can survive one night without modern luxuries, by which I mean: electricity, indoor plumbing and a roof over your head, do not read on.

Back at the camp site I rushed the kids to the public restrooms. Initially I thought I wouldn’t bathe them since we were just staying overnight, and really, how dirty could they possibly get? It turns out the kids were unspeakably grimy and smelly. They reeked of chum, their faces and arms were sticky with the ice cream I’d willingly bought moments before, and their extremities were scratched, bruised and dirty. Really dirty.

Bathing 3 super excited kids in icy cold water, in a narrow and tight space, can be frustrating. Especially if the kids you are bathing are non-compliant. We made our way back to the camp, clean and excited for the evening that lay ahead. I thought to myself the great outdoors perhaps weren’t so bad after all.

Two minutes later I was frantically rummaging for Off! insect repellant. No-see-um mosquitos can unleash hell on earth to any fool who bares his skin anytime between sunset and sunrise. They are impervious to insect repellant so it’s a futile barrier against them. We were relentlessly attacked and assaulted by those mosquitos the entire night.

Unvanquished but reeking of insect repellant, we gathered around a small fire B had ignited near the rocky shore. We roasted marshmallows and watched the sun flicker its last rays behind the horizon.

Night fell quickly, without preamble or romance. One moment there was a penumbra of light and suddenly, there wasn’t. We scrambled for flashlights, even though it was just after 6pm.  I looked around at the RVs in the campground and no longer felt contentment or solidarity with those safely ensconced campers. Instead, I felt a creeping sense of panic and doom. Camping was no longer about solidarity. In the words of a geometry teacher I had back in high school, those in RVs had become “the haves,” and those in tents were the ”have nots.” Unfortunately, we were part of the less enviable group: the “have nots.”

I envied their light. I envied their roofs and doors. But mostly, I envied their safety. We huddled in our tent. The kids were excited for the night that lay ahead. B tethered Jack up to the bench just beside the tent. Inside, B read a story to the kids. It was perfectly still and quiet outside. Here and there the sound of the wind picking up the leaves, or the rustling sounds of low branches brushing against our tent interrupted the otherwise deep silence of the night. In the distance we could hear small waves reach the shore, but a deep quiet persisted despite the fact that all around us there were others in tents or campers a stone’s throw away.

B marveled at the silence and the clarity of the stars above. Our tent had a skylight and because we had a perfect moon in a cloudless sky, the stars were countless and extremely bright. We gazed at the sky and collectively fell asleep. And though I felt a slight tremor of fear as I drifted off to sleep, B’s sense of peace was somehow deeply comforting.

I’d say about 3 hours later all hell broke loose. It started with a somnambulist moment for Maya. I awoke to find her climbing over Sophie trying to make her way out of the tent. I guided her back to her sleeping bag but the night was shot for me. As I tried to fall asleep, Jack began to growl. It was a growl unlike anything I’d ever heard before. He growled a low menacing sound which at times he punctuated with a very loud bark.

The wind had picked up and what had previously been a pleasant soft breeze had now become a persistently loud gust. I lay there hoping Maya wouldn’t try to make her way out again, and worried Jack’s growl wasn’t the paranoid bark of an urban dog but a meaningful bark from a dog sensing danger.

Somehow I drifted into a quasi state of sleep again. This time, however, I was awakened by Sophie’s stifled cries. Jack’s persistent growling scared her and she now needed to go to the bathroom. B sent us off to the bathroom, mistaking my false bravado with real courage. I nearly sprinted to the restrooms with Sophie, swinging my flashlight from left to right like a madwoman, all the while fully aware I wasn’t doing much to calm her fears. As we made our way out of the bathrooms, a man blocked the entrance holding a flashlight. I pushed past him and SPRINTED with a hysterical Sophie all the way back to our tent. Sophie and I nearly collided with B as we ran into our campsite. He’d heard us running back and had walked out to see what the fuss was all about.

Now Sophie, Jack, B and I were awake. Sophie quietly whimpered beside us as Blas and I exchanged time checks, wondering how many hours were left before sunrise. It was barely past midnight, and the night lay out before us interminably long and full of insidious intent. Now every sound was magnified a thousand fold, and with nearly every growl Jack made, B would walk out of the tent with a knife in one hand and a flashlight in the other. It was both comforting and terrifying to know our collective safety rested on my husband’s wits, a skittish dog and a steak knife.

To reassure me, B kept saying it must be a raccoon prowling around. That damned raccoon tortured our imagination, it seemed, for hours. Sophie drifted in and out of sleep, and Maya, like a Shakespearean soothsayer awoke to warn: “Cover the roof of the tent. It might rain.” And just like that, she drifted off to sleep again.

At 2am B rushed to cover our tent. A cold drizzle had begun and with the possibility of a sturdy rainfall, in the dead of night, B stepped out yet again to cover our tent. The sounds of B swiftly covering the tent and my muttered curses must have awakened our littlest one, Ryder. He stood, walked to the edge of the tent, turned to face us, lowered his pajamas — his purpose was clear. B grabbed Ryder just as he began to urinate in our tent. B returned to the tent with Ryder, just in time to escort Maya to the restroom. Really, the level of absurdity rivals anything I’d ever experienced.

We remained fully awake the rest of the night. Like a sentinel on his night beat, B restlessly covered the perimeter of our campsite, ready to leap at all imagined (or real) intruder who dared upon us. Sophie slept fitfully and repeatedly told me she never wanted to camp out again. Maya and Ryder, more or less, slept blissfully unaware of the hell that had been unleashed throughout the night. Jack greeted us in the morning both hoarse and limp. God knows what demons he faced that night.

Sunrise did not greet us that morning. Instead, we greeted the sunrise. We summoned the sun from its slumber, and with our hearts and minds declared, “Enough is enough. Damn it, we need light.”

We woke the kids up around 6am and fed them breakfast. We rode our bikes out to the aptly named “Garcia’s Flagler’s Folly,” and bore witness to the famous “Florida Keys’s sunrise.” Sophie and I quietly sat in a butterfly garden beside the ocean’s shore, and watched the sun stretch over the sea. B, Ryder and Maya threw out their fishing lines and caught and released more fish during those early morning hours than can be believed.

Together, we packed our tent, cleaned our campsite, and loaded our truck. We left the campgrounds with a sense of excitement, unity and if I might admit it, relief.

Most people who know me and my habits, have since asked me whether I would do it again. The answer is yes. I won’t ever campout again. I don’t have the constitution for it, but, in an RV, as my old geometry teacher once goaded me, as a “have,” yes, I would certainly do it again.

The opportunity to have uninterrupted time with my family, under a cloudless sky, a bicycle and the beautiful outdoors — yes, few things are truer or more beautiful than the time we shared in Bahia Honda.

Yes, I’d do it again – noo-see-ums, raccoons and all.

Allow me to put this in context. I like the great outdoors in urban areas, say, Central Park in NYC, or from a car window, as I drive past the Everglades National Park. I can enjoy these sites in small doses, during the daytime, as in guided hikes through the Great Smokey Mountains, or through the rainforests in Puerto Rico.

But never, in a million years, did I ever consider “overnight camping” in the wild, unpredictable Great Outdoors a viable option on my bucket list. It doesn’t matter now because apparently it was on my husband’s list of things to do “with the family,” and I had no choice but to oblige him and our caravan of very eager children.

Someone suggested visiting Bahia Honda in the Florida Keys. Located in Big Pine Key, this public park is flanked on one side by the Atlantic Ocean and on the other, by the Gulf of Mexico. A very narrow strip of land makes up the park and its environs: campsite, marina, various nature trails, and a fragment of Flagler’s Florida Overseas Railroad.

We left the warmth and safety of our home on December 26th loaded to the “gills” with fishing poles (I don’t fish), a borrowed tent (B bragged 8 could sleep comfortably in it), a shocked dog (Jack was, by far, the most traumatized by this trip), OFF! insect repellant (useless against the no-see-ums), bikes, flashlights, and enough food in the unlikely event we were left stranded.

Our campsite was adjacent to the crystal blue-green waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Our home for the night was a 20 by 40 lot, with a picnic table, grill and privacy hedges on either side. We had an enviable  and uncluttered view of the vast sky — a sight we would later truly appreciate while gazing the stars. 

As B pitched the tent, our kids fluttered around us, gleeful and excited. I confess, I too felt a touch of their eager excitement. But alas, ignorance is bliss. As we set off to fish (I can’t believe I just wrote that sentence), I was buoyed by the earthy, organic experience we had embarked upon.  I didn’t even object to the foul odor of chum (dead fish parts) emanating from the dripping bag of bait Blas had picked up for this fishing expedition. I went along with it because the wind was in my hair, my kids were bathed in sunlight, and the furrow, which as of late had taken residence in my beloved’s brow, had somehow, disappeared. Besides, B was certain he would “catch” our dinner and cook it on our grill — like a 21st century frontiersman.

All was well in the world. I felt a strange solidarity with the other campers as we rode past their relaxed smiles and waving hands. I thought of the bygone 60s, of the hippies warming their hands around the campfire while singing Joan Baez songs; these were my thoughts as I pedaled toward the ocean, family in tow. The kids played on the surf — a low tide had left the shore with small wading pools.

We explored Flagler’s Folly, the abandoned railroad system Henry Flagler built with the hope of connecting the Florida Keys to the mainland. A portion of the rail system still stands and can be admired up close from a bridge in the park. B and the kids fished off a pier clearly marked “Dangerous current” and “Swimming Prohibited.” Initially I panicked while the kids fished off the pier with B, but after a while, I acclimated. I know. Judge me.

 The kids loved the experience. All in all, 12 fish were caught: grunts and snappers. I wasn’t anywhere need this catch and release exercise. I was sitting near the shore, marveling at the forgotten concept of voluntary solitude and how marvelous it actually felt. Wow! Alone with my thoughts but well accompanied by an interminably long but well written novel. What a fantastic idea!

The kids stayed with B as he fished, but sometimes they hopped on their bikes and pedaled from the scraggly rocky hill, to the shore beside me. They poked pinkish blue jelly fish with drift wood. The sun warmed our backs. Our contentment fulfilled us. The hours and minutes of our day, it seemed, had us nestled in a comforting embrace.

Fishing, or the rituals of fishing, were (or are, it seems) a perfect antidote for B’s stress. And by stress, I mean the troubles that follow you even after you’ve left work, even after you lock the door after a day’s labor, even after you’ve imbibed a few but knots insist, and they stiffen your hands, neck and back. Stress, the unwanted guest who knocks at 2 a.m. and keeps you company in the quiet hours as everyone, it seems, rests. Fishing the blue waters, where the Gulf and the Atlantic meet and crash, restored him. And in a sense, restored our family unit.

We rode our bikes to a sundry shop where the kids got ice cream cones and had a chance to view up close a manatee. Its back bore the cuts and scratches from propellers, yet it didn’t shy away from people or the boats in the marina. It skimmed the surface of the water and it allowed itself to be touched.

Leaving the marina we noted dusk was soon approaching, so we hastened back to the camp grounds to bathe and prepare for dinner. One might refer to this moment in our adventure as a turning point or critical moment; the tenor of our trip would soon take a decisive turn.

When in doubt, turn to a trusted friend for sound advice:

Grasshopper:  You’ve never steered me wrong when it comes to my choice of drink or drink habits.Tell me this: Is it wrong to open a bottle of wine if I’m alone in the house and it’s certain I’ll be drinking alone?

Master:  Nope. Sounds like an opportunity to enjoy a bottle without the fear of an argument or sexual favors in the end.

Truer words are rarely spoken.

LOL.

As we headed out the door on New Year’s Eve, Ryder said, “We’re going to party like rock stars!”

Indeed.

In 2005, during an ultrasound, B and I cross-examined our technician, with hopes of unequivocally confirming, that yes, we were pregnant with a boy. Blas was afraid to hope and felt more than just ”a little afraid” of a life without a male counterpart to balance out all the estrogen under one roof. But really, who can blame him for that?

Picking a name for Ryder was difficult. B, inexplicably, wanted to name our son ”Seth,” the name of an obscure motocross rider from his youth, and I, having grown up with a thousand “Seths” was as indisposed to that name as I was to naming one of our daughters “Jennifer.” Seth was the least likely moniker for the little boy I envisioned but had yet to meet.

Anyway, we settled on Ryder — a homonym of sorts, which paid homage to my writing inclination and Blas’s “riding” hobby. If there is any truth to the concept of manifest destiny, it appears Ryder might in fact be living proof of it. When he was 3 or so, B began the frustrating process of signing Ryder up for baseball, soccer, tennis, golf, swimming — just about every team sport you can imagine. Ryder never participated in these games, and if truth be told, he seemed so ill at ease, it was clear he wasn’t athletically inclined. Umm, the very opposite of Blas. That made for a tense period of time in our home. Blas was annoyed his only begotten son abhorred team activities. Meanwhile, I kept asking him to give Ryder time to acclimate. The thought Ryder might become a handsome intellectual who’d find the cure to cancer while penning the Great American Novel secretly thrilled me.

Alas, what became clear as day was Ryder’s growing obsession with all matters relating to cars: tv shows, movies, cartoons, bikes, motorcycles, etc. Hmm, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, after all. 

B soon realized Ryder might in fact, as his name suggests, have a talent for driving. The very first time Ryder sat in a go-kart at a local track, both Ryder and Blas were hooked. So, did his name influence his nature? Who knows.

With deep trepidation, B and I struck a deal: go karts only; motocross, which is B’s real passion, was out of the question. For nearly a year now, Ryder has been racing competitively in Florida. He’s done quite well despite his age and limited time on the track.

This past weekend, father and son recently headed out to the Homestead-Miami Speedway for practice karting laps. B suited up to race in his class division, but also to show Ryder the “line” and thereby improve his racing technique. 

The two did quite well.

What I do know is that B and Ryder are happiest when they’re at the track, fiddling with the go-kart, or watching Top Gear.

 You know, like father like son.

This year, the twins and I made the pilgrimage to the farm which is run by Dunkers (a sect of German Baptists) for their sticky buns, milkshakes, and u-pick strawberries. They are open, as they say, “Lord willing, every November through mid-April.” It isn’t uncommon to visit the farm and see adults and young children dressed in Amish looking attire. The women wear long skirts and bonnets, and most of the men have long beards.

The lines into the bakery are long but well worth the wait. This past week we visited the farm, picked fresh tomatoes and strawberries, and picnicked in the sun.  

This past week Art Basel celebrated its 10th year in Miami.

I brought the twins to the event knowing that the opportunity to see Picasso and de Kooning originals up close is rare — especially in Miami.

Due to this unlimited access, the girls walked into a mini gallery inside a larger gallery and interrupted a $850k sale of a Jackson Pollock piece. Our proximity to the wheeling and dealing of collectors was a thrill. The twins perused and dismissed the art, even some masterpieces, with a shrug of a shoulder or with blunt indifference.

In one hall I lingered over Henri Cartier-Bresson originals; it was exciting to see these up close. I took a picture of the twins beside an Irving Penn Picasso portrait to which Sophie nervously observed: “That guy looks creepy.” Indeed.

I was unprepared for the violence and nudity in some of the exhibits — there’s a difference between art that depicts nudity as a study of the human body, versus nudity and explicit sexual content. At one point I ushered Sophie out of a hall where enlarged photographs of male genitalia were shown, right into another hall filled with titillating sexual images.

I took my girls by their arms and nearly dragged them to the green rest area for a “break.” As we sat and discussed the art we had seen Maya asked,”Why is some art OK for us to see and why is some of it not OK?” I guess all of my subtle effort to casually redirect their attention had miserably failed.

As we made our way out of Art Basel, both girls agreed most of their own pieces are worthy of exhibition.

I’d like to think our day at Art Basel provided them an alternate view of the world – hopefully one that matches their own perspectives, filled with color and light, like a box of crayons.

Life is interesting. When B was a young man, his father did not give him a trust fund or the keys to a shiny new car. Instead, he gave him carpentry tools, and reminded him that every worthy man must have an honest trade. It’s been over 20 years since that conversation, and to date, B uses those tools and still lives by that mantra.

One of the tools B received that day was a circular hand saw. That saw was used this past weekend to build Jack a new home. Jack did not need any coaxing to get him in his dog house. In fact, we had to beg him to pop his head out just to get this picture.

The things we build with faith — be it, a family or a dog house — endure. I’m sure our children won’t forget their day spent learning and working side-by-side their father. They sawed, nailed, and painted their way through the afternoon.

These memories, much like the wood and nails used this weekend, make us feel strong, safe and unbreakable.

B, our benevolent builder, and his three eager apprentices.

We studied technique and ethics, but mostly, we studied the effect of light and how to best manipulate it out in the field and inside the dark room. I sought the break of dawn, the moments right before dusk, or the light just after a brief sun shower with the stubborn intensity of  a frustrated lover. 

This torrid love affair was handicapped by my inability to understand shutter speeds and F stops. As such, countless hours were spent toiling away in dark rooms, fiddling with chemicals, trying to get that exposure just right. I used to rent a dark room space in South Beach for $15, and in the quiet solitude of those days, I’d ineptly process my film.

I stubbornly used my Pentax and processed my film until B struck a bargain: a dual mode, manual/automatic Pentax (which automatically loaded film) with a telephoto lens (we could both use!) for our honeymoon. Rightfully, he wanted to be able to use a camera during our vacation –my old lover, the manual Pentax, had become a third wheel in our relationship.

Despite my hardcore beginnings, I now take pictures with my iPhone. As I write this I am compelled to lower my head lest my old professor should find me. Both Pentax cameras have been sold on ebay, and all that remains of that old flame are boxes full of prints circa 1995 – 2001.

Today, I’m addicted to applications such as Hisptamatic and Instagram. These are great tools for people interested in modifying their images by adding sharp contrasts, or softening colors for a retro look.

I still drag my kids out the door when I catch a glimpse of ephemeral light. But, the quest to capture these fleeting moments is now a thousand times easier.

Last week I turned 40 and felt neither melancholy nor a rush of euphoria having reached this milestone.

By all accounts, 40 seems to be a turning point many women dread. My 40th arrived without ringing a bell; in fact, it quietly arrived and departed without pomp and circumstance. Turning forty did not exempt me from the daily grind of work, school work, after school activities, more work, and other sundry obligations.

The day, as it were, was ordinary and predictable.

Except that now I am 40, and by all accounts, I’ve run out of excuses. I’m no longer 30 and wistful of my carefree 20s. At 40, the responsibility of being a fully committed spouse, parent and daughter cannot be transferred or postponed. As it turns out, I have to set a good example to my children, who look onto B and I, as righteous stewards of their future.

I recall writing this 2 years ago and how, during a moment of self-pity, I thought 40 was a type of dead-end to all unaccomplished goals. I thought if I hadn’t completed certain professional and personal goals by this time, the clock would effectively, turn its back on me.

In fact, the clock hasn’t stopped ticking away and it hasn’t told me I’ve run out time. Instead, it stands by my sidelines, inexorably marking the days away, urging me to be productive and thoughtful with my time.

So, where and how do I wish to invest my time? I hope this year to give my husband and children time — time and attention spent fully vested in them. 

In effect, time to spend with these irreplaceable fools  ♥