I knew that it was time to get out of Savannah when I almost (purposefully) sent tourists in the wrong direction. A friend of mine, an economist, tells me that Savannah has more tourists per capita than in any city in the United States other than Orlando, and I believe it. I have given many strangers (correct) directions and helpful suggestions, and I have patiently waded through people blocking the door of my office building, where they have congregated to take pictures. I have even refrained on cold February mornings from telling the group that surrounds the seersucker and straw hat-clad tour guide that no one actually wears seersucker and a straw hat in 40 degree weather. But last Sunday afternoon, I kept hearing a honking and slightly intoxicated voice behind me, braying again and again, Have you figured out yet how to get to the river? I had no idea that it was directed toward me until someone grabbed my shoulder and said, I said, Have you figured out yet how to get to the river? I turned to face a family of four in full-on Confederate regalia, and as I did, I contemplated just how delicious it would be to send them on a two-mile trek south instead of a two-block stroll north. Fortunately for them, Chris — kind, sensible Chris — was with me, so I smiled politely and gestured north to the promised land of frozen drinks.

I read recently that wanderlust may have a genetic component, that the desire to get out may very well be locked in one’s DNA. So get out I did,  and spent five nights in five different cities: Tuesday/Cincinnati, Wednesday/Savannah, Thursday/Tybee Island, Friday/Tallahassee, and finally on Saturday, coming to rest on Saint Simons Island for a week-long vacation.

I had gone to Cincinnati for work, and in the time between court on Wednesday morning and my flight on Wednesday afternoon, I wandered around the city. After having a surprisingly good lunch at a French restaurant — is Cincinnati on the left bank of the Ohio River? Maybe. — I walked into a contemporary art museum that I had passed on several prior trips. I was worried; I had 20 minutes before I met my airport shuttle. But it was free, and when I asked exactly what I should see in my 20 minutes, the young woman at the desk said, Make sure you take in our fourth and fifth floor galleries. (To be fair, those were the only two galleries in the entire museum.) I boarded the largest elevator I had ever ridden — an elevator literally the size of my dining room — and after it lumbered upward, the doors opened on this sight:

Readers, I will offer this observation: Before you send a hapless tourist into an enormous fluorescent room populated with 48 life sized lounging models of clowns, you really should warn her. Clowns! The artist did a masterful job — and perhaps “masterful” is entirely the wrong word, maybe “terrifying” is more appropriate — of making the clowns look lifelike, to the point that I found myself waving my hand in front of one’s eyes to see if it would blink. But no. After having more than my fair share of the clowns, which is to say 37 seconds, I reluctantly rode to the fifth floor to see what horrors awaited me, saw the single painting hanging there (a giant spiral), and left.

Who knew that modern art could be so cruel?

The next night I found myself in some friends’ beach house on Tybee. We arrived before they did, and after a few hours of walking, lounging, and raiding the dog-eared paperbook book selection that every proper beach house has, the four of us went to a nearby bar and restaurant for fish tacos and a drink. The sign outside promised a show at 9 p.m., but this was an insufficient warning for what we actually saw.

I think I can reduce my expectation to a simple equation: “Show” + “bar and restaurant on Tybee Island” = “dude with acoustic guitar singing Van Morrison and Jack Johnson covers.”

I did not expect, say, a venerable Savannahian-turned-Hollywood-publicist announcing to the assembled masses that we constituted the most sophisticated crowd in all of Savannah, all of whom were about to see a New York cabaret show. I knew that he could not count on me for the “sophisticated” part — after all, I had recently recoiled in horror at the high-concept modern art clown exhibit — and when I looked around, I was not so certain that he could count on anyone else in the room, either.

I will try to be kind, so I will say only this: There is a reason that 60 year-olds do not give vocal recitals, or if they do and are not related by blood to me, that they do not invite me. The singer had a certain fondness for ingénue songs, and while I like to think that we’re all eternally young, it would be a more convincing endeavor (at least in my mind) if age-appropriate music were involved. But that’s just me, the one who was tempted to jump up and sing “Clang, clang, clang went the trolley!” just like the Sweeney Sisters skit from Saturday Night Live.

I resisted — just barely — and after eating the most expensive (psychologically speaking) fish tacos I had ever consumed, I walked outside with my friends, only to find the dude who sang the acoustic covers packing up his guitar. The experience was surreal, at least to my unsophisticated tastes, and as I write, I wonder if it was all a piece of performance art.

I do not think so.

Friday found us on the road headed to Tallahassee, the site of my aunt’s house and a family reunion in miniature. (I say this because very few people could come this year.) We listened to “S-Town” on the way over, and it is compelling in strange and equal measures. Chris and I stayed in the neighbor’s house — an Airbnb special — only to find that our bedroom and the adjoining bath had no door. None. (I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that.) But this oddity aside, I spent time with two aunts, an uncle, three first cousins, and three first cousins once removed. Everyone looked alike, enjoyed margaritas, and occasionally burst into song — my tribe if ever there were one.

Late Saturday morning, I found myself standing in the middle of my aunt’s kitchen, surrounded by three blood relatives — my aunt, a master gardener; my uncle, a gifted carpenter; and a first cousin, a talented painter and metalsmith — and I had such a sense of belonging. I think that sometimes I get too caught up in looking relentlessly forward that I forget to glance back behind me or even around to my side. But there they were; my family remained despite my failings. My aunt insisted on giving me a vase that belonged to my great-grandmother and a setting of Fiesta Ware, the brightly colored plates that my grandmother, a woman who helped run the family’s hardware store, considered her good china. The last 40 something years have not diminished my love of the color of those dishes and the freedom they represented, for nothing ever had to match (or, to be more accurate, they matched only by mismatching).  My aunt stacked blue, green, and yellow together, and at a thrift store on Monday, I found an ivory Fiesta Ware creamer from the 1950s for $3, a good omen indeed.

And now Chris and I are sitting on the back porch of the cottage on Beachview, where we have spent time for the last five summers. He is reading, and I am writing. I have painted, including this view of my surroundings:

I have also started on a portrait of Chris, a painting I have tentatively titled: “This May Lead to Divorce: Amy Lee Attempts to Paint Chris.” (I refuse to show it to you, but trust me when I say that the preliminary take looks like the love child of a Neanderthal man and the character from the game “Operation.”) It is a treat to spend time at a place both foreign and familiar, and the anxiety switch powers down faster here than anywhere else in the entire world. There are constants on this trip — walks on the beach, lots of sleep, a little bad television, sitting on the porch, riding bikes everywhere. We straddle (and we straddle well) a fine line between engagement and boredom, relaxation and utter sloth.

Outside our little world, every trip features a bicycle rider looking too far ahead and missing the obstacle in the immediate path. Every trip features a visit to a boiled peanut purveyor who foolishly asks what size serving we want. (Large. Duh.) And every trip features wanton consumption of barbecue at our favorite place, a converted gas station with outside seating under a carport. It is an excellent place to people watch, and Monday, in pouring rain, perfect people about our age sat on the picnic table next to us. Seriously, they looked like they had stepped off the set of a Viagra ad, like he should have been commanding an impressive sailboat while she gazed at him longingly, wearing only a slightly oversized football jersey. I stared. I watched them with their well-lasered and injected faces, their immaculate clothes, their perfect tans, their utter maximization of their bountiful genetic gifts, and my hand involuntarily flew to my soft belly, then up to hide the lines on my forehead. The counter help called out the woman’s name, something too classy and perfect for a fellow child born in the 1960s, and she raised her hand. A single salad appeared in front of them, and they began to share it.

At a barbecue joint. On vacation.

I appreciated their virtue and their commitment, I really did. It is good to get a reality check about what it takes to be perfect. At that point, the young waitress walked by, pink hair wet from the rain, towel in hand to try to dry the benches. Sweetheart, I said, for I have begun calling servers who remind me of our children sweetheart, could you please take our picture?

When cameras operated with film and the image was precious, the shooter got a single shot. But the young woman depressed the camera phone’s button and took and took and took. When she smiled and handed the camera back to me, there were dozens of photos of Chris and me, almost all exactly alike of two imperfect tourists who had not been sent the wrong way to the river. And it was good.

ALC