The best-laid plans of mice and men / Often go awry /
and leave us only grief and pain / for promised joy!
Many a time in my young life I have uttered these words (these, the more modern English translation of the Robert Burns’ original poem) made familiar to me by John Steinbeck. I find it delightfully appropriate these lines were penned by Burns in a poem wherein a farmer is speaking to the mouse whose nest he has destroyed by his plowing. I have always enjoyed a rich text that invites me to consider its angles, its meanings, like the way a mouse’s best efforts to build a home are destroyed not by her efforts, but by someone else, someone over whom she has no control. Even so, the farmer finds it important to make amends for what he has done, assuring her she is not alone. I appreciate that assurance as well.
As we returned from a recent mini family adventure, I found that famous opening line echoing in my mind as I reflected on our trip, which inspired me to look up its origins. I’m not sure the poem’s quoted lines or interpretations in fact apply to our adventure, and yet, I find myself playing the four lines in my mind, filtering our experience through them nonetheless.
When we travel, I tend to be a meticulous planner because traveling as a neurodivergent family can bring unique challenges or obstacles. Typically, with careful planning, most challenges are easy to navigate; this time, however, that was not entirely true, and I found myself experiencing a bit more grief than the anticipated joy for which I had planned. My best-laid plans were not nearly as smooth as I believed they should have been in at least three specific ways.
First, when we head out on vacation, part of our packing list includes the home-cooked foods and even some of the kitchen items, like our double boiler for melting chocolate and the tiny skillet for cooking three sausage links, so we can cook familiar foods at the place we are staying. That plan went awry within moments of checking into our accommodations when the front desk person advised my husband that should we decide to cook, we needed to run the stove-top hood fan on high and crack the windows because the smoke alarms are highly sensitive and when they go off, they will set off all of the alarms in the units included in our building and the fire department will show up. She added that cooking bacon was the usual culprit, which also just happens to be the one protein I tend to cook for our youngest teenager at breakfast and dinner.
Up next, our first day’s outing to a place that online looked like a good fit because it had a record store where the oldest could hunt for favorite vinyl selections, but also had a handful of interesting-looking stores my youngest could enjoy while her sister explored the record store. Unfortunately, the photos on the cute shopping place’s website must have been taken a few years ago at the very least. Most of the storefronts were closed entirely, others were tourist traps overfilled with kitsch and a tobacco shop allowed smoking inside its premises and the smoky cigarette smell permeated most of the upper levels (not good for a my sensory-avoiding younger teen when it comes to strange smells). My well-laid plans were crumbling bit by bit and it was only the second day.
Finally, we headed to the aquarium, the main event for our mini adventure. We had visited a similar aquarium a few years ago in Myrtle Beach and we were excited to explore this one. Unfortunately, it was Friday, and, as my teenagers joked in the car when we left the first time, Friday, as Alex the Lion announces in Madagascar, Friday is Field Trip Day at their zoo; apparently it’s also field trip day at the aquarium. While our initial foray into the attraction started out pretty well, the noise level and gaggles of unchaperoned teenagers yelling and running pretty much amok quickly fulfilled once again that my best-laid plans were going awry. Sigh.
Fortunately, with the help of a wonderful aquarium employee, we found a quiet space in an employee-only area where she suggested we consider leaving and coming back after 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. when the space likely would be much quieter. And so we did. And for part of our afternoon back at our condo unit, I seriously considered throwing in the towel and packing our things and heading home. But the girls really wanted to go back to the aquarium. I, on the other hand, was having difficulty holding onto the promised joy of our family vacation adventure.
We stayed, eventually returning to the aquarium that was, indeed, decibels quieter and considerably empty. With ease and even a bit of renewed joy we meandered our way through the levels, relaxing while watching floating cuttlefish, smiling at the drifting jellyfish (and getting to touch some of them, too), and traveling through their underwater tunnel on a slow-moving sidewalk people mover. With each tank we passed, each school of fish I watched, each gliding stingray that floated through the water in front of me helped my joy inch its way back into my heart, mind, and soul. Despite my crumpled plans and the awry adventure, I knew my joy was not dependent upon my perfect plans, my best-laid plans. Rather my joy was and is dependent upon God and the people I love. And my teenagers remind me often just how much joy and love I have in my life by their laughter, their smiles, their resilience, and their very presence.