Nice is nice but it is packed full of people. Two new girls moved into my hostel and they hate air conditioning and I hate them. It is too damn hot to be turning off the AC during the day. And night, for that matter. I wake in the middle of the night with sweat dripping out my eyelids. I wonder if I have enough of a fever to be admitted at the emergency room. Are French hospitals as icy as American ones? If the people are any indication, I'd bet my money on it.
That was mean, and uncalled for, albeit with a modicum of truth. The wait staff in the restaurants are overworked and unfriendly, and I bet they wish they were at the beach, only I can't fathom why. The trains to get from the city center to the seaside towns are so crowded that you might not even get on. The beaches are littered with striped umbrellas, like flags claiming territory, and now that there's no patch of sand left, the latecomers must declare war and behave like barbarians to seize whatever space has been left unguarded. Also, the Mediterranean is warm and has no waves. I’d hardly call it an ocean.
I can’t believe that this is some people’s dream vacation. I can make salty bath water at home – with scented candles, a good book, and no one to disturb me. I think that the French Riviera is perhaps more dreamy if you are spending money to stay in one of the glamorous seaside hotels. But me, I am just trying not to go broke. And so here I am alone on a crowded beach, stewing in sweat and sunscreen, passing the time watching people whose behavior is predictably uninspiring.
And tomorrow I will do it all again.
"It's a learning experience," is how my grandmother likes to recategorize the negative moments of her life in the filing cabinet of her memory.
That's certainly one way to cope with the disappointments of life (and travel). What did I learn? Perhaps that Nice – or large crowds of people, or heat – are not for me. But I knew that already. I had spent most of the last year in nature, hiking into the cool air mountains of Africa, Australia, and Aotearoa (New Zealand), curled up at night in my tent with a lantern and a book.
What else did I learn? Perhaps that the little voice inside my mind has a penchant for cruelty. But I knew that too. By the time I reached Nice, the voice and I had been through three meditation retreat centers together, and I was well aware that I had chosen a miserable travel companion.
Certainly I learned that my expectations of a Riviera holiday (from social media and travel magazines) did not line up to reality.
And maybe that's the real lesson: The whole point is that you're not supposed to like everything.
"Discernment is having the eyes to see, the ears to hear – and the ability to feel the emotional energy that is Truth." -Robert Burney
Look, don't get me wrong. It would be wonderful to go through life Enchanted – but as Amy Adams' movie character discovers, eternal innocence and optimism isn't a way to survive in the real world. Only by embracing the full spectrum of experience does she learn to fall in love with life.
And that's the expectation that we are holding dear when we feel disappointment in an experience we're having. We're expecting everything to be to our liking, when actually, the fact that we have preferences and tastes is what adds richness to our life.
Your affinities and aversions are part of what makes you a unique human being. We love that you're you.
Contrast is what gives life intrigue. If we liked everything, we would grow accustomed to it, and it would feel bland.
Our ability to say, "I like this, not that" is an evolutionary imperative of life.
This approach to coping with disappointment is beyond simply accepting the experience. "It is what it is."
This approach embraces the feeling, and celebrates that we feel it at all.
Early on in my time in New Zealand, I realized that I was going to "lose" some days due to the weather. Freezing rain would wash a day of hiking away, and because I only had a month with the rental car to get around the South Island, I didn't have a day in my itinerary to spare to make it up.
At the time, this was the sage advice I told a friend:
"You will see what you get to see, you will miss what you had planned to see but cannot because of the weather, and you will maybe come back someday, maybe not, but it doesn’t matter, because what you are able to see is stunning and wonderful and the rainy days are good for reading and catching up with people and laundry."
It's a remarkable perspective, really, from a woman who would only months later find herself in France, whining about the experience not being what she expected.
Clara Ritger
Related Read: Here's a helpful framework for how to interrupt the story in your mind when you're spiraling.
Even when I know what to do, how to cope, sometimes I choose the misery, and that's okay. But on this day, I was able to feel the disappointment of not being able to explore trails that I had really hoped to see, and be with the harsh truth that I may never have the chance to see them. A monthlong road trip around the South Island of New Zealand is, for most people, a once-in-a-lifetime trip.
When you're disappointed, it can be revealing to inquire what it's really about. Is it really about the hike, or is it about feeling like a day of vacation was wasted? In the latter case, is the problem really that it rained, or is it that you don't get enough time off?
When disappointment feels unshakeable, ask yourself: what is the underlying story I'm telling myself about this experience?
On that day in the rain, I did two other things beyond catching up with my friend and laundry: I went wine tasting, an activity I had planned to skip in favor of hiking, and I appreciated the nature that I could see, the beautiful fall foliage all over town.
What the bad weather days gave me was a greater appreciation for the days where I had good weather. Every clear sky elicited an utterance of gratitude, because I was acutely aware of how fleeting that moment could be.
A lot of people will tell you to "focus on the positives," but in a sense, it's the opposite. By acknowledging the negatives, we become conscious of the spectrum of experience we could be having, and so when we are having a positive experience, our sense of it is amplified.
1. Feeling: Feel your disappointment, and any other feelings that are coming up about this experience. Name them out loud or on paper. Identify everything about this experience that makes you feel anything at all.
2. Love/Like: Can you find something that you love or even just like about the experience you are having?
3. Observe: What did you learn about yourself, your tastes, and your uniqueness?
4. Pivot: Go do something else that you know you'll love. Find an easy win.
5. Story: Identify the story you're telling yourself about this experience. What did you hope for? What did you get instead? What is this really about?
Views from the Tour de Cap Ferrat Coastal Path in the French Riviera.
Coastal walks, I discovered, were the secret to evading the tourists of Nice. The good beaches with the nice sand attracted crowds, even if they were far down the path, but the rocky coastline left plenty of swimming holes with only a handful of adventurous explorers. I spent an afternoon wandering the Tour de Cap Ferrat Coastal Path, musing on what it would be like to be a person who takes an annual vacation to the same place, as I suspect many tourists in the French Riviera do.
Maybe someday I'll have travel companions other than the one in my mind, and we'll settle into a rhythm of returning again and again to the things we like.
But I think even if we try to engineer the experience for maximum pleasure, disappointment will find us, in lost luggage – or a soggy croissant.
