Family Vacation

This is a photo of me eating ice cream with my family in Zihuatanejo, Mexico when I was 17 years old. Coming down from Montana in the middle of December, the brain freeze was a welcome relief from the heat that engulfed the landscape. The intricately decorated ice cream and the flashy advertisements of the western world beautifully contrasted the fading stucco and stone buildings preserved, yet in the same way constructed to give the influence of a once existent culture. The place incites the idea of the stereotypical summer vacation, even the walls display the generic ideal of a perfect family vacation. I sit inside the safety of the little burrow, knowing that my skin textured and colored like the picture itself is just as fragile to the sun’s effects. Like moles, the rest peek their heads out into the sun and look back to entice me back into the blare and hustle of the outside world. But the poster behind me, fitting me like a halo, shows my content to stay where I am safe.