A mild Caribbean breeze blows through the veranda as I sit poolside with a piña colada writing this dispatch. The trilingual shouts of children echo in the distance as Latin beats pump from the bar area and the early birds arrive for cocktail hour, dressed in their casual, tropical finery. Dinner time at Club Med Punta Cana approaches and I am as relaxed as I have been in ages, tending far toward the Type-B side of my personal dichotomy.
Violet and I arrived from our snowy home a few days back and we have been engaged in the business of doing very little – a lot of reading, some sailing, a cruise to snorkel on the reef, and generally chilling. For a duo that rarely pauses to rest, it is the physical and mental salve that we desperately needed.
The last time I was at Club Med was a summer in college at the Turks & Caicos location, with my brother and parents and a few friends. It has been fascinating to revisit the Club Med experience from this side of parenthood – a mystifying time warp as I now witness teenage and twentysomething loose cannons that are the new version of me and Dane, flirting and dancing and carousing with the reckless abandon that typified that time in my life.
In the kids’ current parlance, Club Med is a vibe – a French resort company with over 60 outposts across five continents. Although it draws an international crowd, there are an outsized amount of French about, cigarette smoke and cool clothes and insouciance aplenty – a massive draw for a Francophile like me. Great food and tons of activities are the hallmarks of Club Med, so it is no surprise that it has drawn me back with my new generation.
Leading the charge on the beach, on the dancefloor, in the theater, on the water, and on the trapeze (yes, there is a circus in which you can try your hand!) are the staff – the gentils organisateurs or G.O.s that keep spirits sky high. A cosmopolitan assemblage of mostly young folk, I absolutely idolized these G.O.s on my previous Club Med excursions and had crushes on not a few of the more athletic, beautiful ones back in the day.
In the lee of my college years, with law school on the horizon, a destination that I had plotted from a very young age, I was beginning to despair about what I believed to be the inevitable corporatization of my existence. I’m not sure if my parents even know this (hi Mom and Pops, love you!), but I was becoming so trepidatious about that path that, even after I had already been accepted at UVA Law, I put in my application to be a sailing G.O.
Now more than twenty years into an extraordinarily fulfilling legal career, with a wonderful law partner and tons of freedom for adventure, a mountain-based working life that I could never have even imagined back at the UVA/Club Med crossroads, it is fascinating to contemplate the route that I forewent.
Club Med would have taken me around the world, but I have accomplished that on my own, traveling in manners both dirtbag and luxe, to all of the continents save Antarctica. I would have met a tremendous variety of people, partied super hard, and lived a pretty simple life. I would have loved and lost and loved and lost and been forced to say goodbye too soon to friends. And yet, when I take stock of the years hence, I recognize that I have had all of those experiences, positive and negative, of my own accord. I have realized all of those dreams, suffered all of those nightmares, with nobody to guide me but myself and my own kith and kin.
As the sunset purples my surroundings, I am imbued with an overwhelming sense of gratitude and pride. I may have left Club Med, but the Club Med spirit never left me. Now, I have the chance to pass that gift to my own daughter, to see that spark ignite in her, to see where it takes her. Perhaps one day I will visit and she will be a G.O. wrangling kids on the volleyball court or else she will have Club Med’s core values instilled in her – love, mischief, adventure, and communion. I can only hope that she and I are so lucky.