6:02 a.m.
I shake off all the "shoulds" of a 51-year-old life and head up the dark street with Finn. My new sandals feel good, although the heel of the right one lets out a slow hiss with each step. Still, it isn't enough to disrupt the chorus of cricket song. For a moment, I am lost in the churring hum, wondering how it is that so many songs, strummed out in so many different rhythms, can come together so wonderfully.
My thoughts are disrupted by a runner on 33rd Street, whose speed and stride suggest escape. More likely, it's determination that fuels him, but I am not a runner and, as such, can only speculate.
Our short stint on 33rd is the only part of our morning walk that is punctuated by the sights and sounds of city life, even when most of that city is still shaking off sleep. A few cars streak by, one pumping music that feels more Friday night than Thursday morning. Who am I to tell others the right way to start their day?
We round the corner, greeted by the slow basso of a great horned owl. A few houses later, his song is answered by a frenzied staccato coming from an oak tree across the street. 6:15 a.m. Closing time for the owls, one last quip before they call it a day. I am glad for these concentric circles that bring us together for a few moments, Finn and I leaning in to listen to stories not intended for our ears.
I have lived in this neighborhood for nine years, walking these paths a thousand times now. They are home to me, these streets bathed in the warm lights of waking neighbors whose names now roll easily off my tongue. At once familiar and new, I cherish these morning walks, my pedometer faithfully clicking off each step.
Soon, we find ourselves on 33rd Street again, the sky a bit brighter, the traffic a bit heavier. That's when I spy something new on this late August morning--two lanky teens and a young girl shooting baskets in the early-morning light. I stop and watch them for a moment, wondering if I'm imagining it all.
6:28 a.m.
3,051 steps.
This morning walk is nothing much, I know.
And it is everything.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
The Last Firefly of the Summer
Last night, I sat on the patio and watched dusk nudge the remaining streaks of sunlight out of the way. A handful of cicadas were humming the last bars of their songs, while the robins finally gave up their frantic Gladys Kravitz imitations, conceding the night to the owls, those no-good scalawags.
That's when a lone firefly flashed his "open" sign across the tops of the goldenrod, hoping a lithe passerby might take him up on his offer. No other light pulsed in response, though, and I followed his scattered trail across the yard, his abdomen swollen with longing, his lighted trail empty behind him.
I know that it is a human impulse to assign our species' qualities to others. I know that this firefly probably didn't go home and etch a glowing note of despair before offing himself in the basement. I know these things but, when I see the last firefly of summer tapping out his Morse Code across the night sky, I cannot help but feel an ache inside.
It's the same ache I feel when I see a kid eating alone in our noisy lunchroom, surrounded by sharks and minnows, schools of frantic classmates who seem to look every way but his. I know that this kid, like the firefly, may not give a whit about being alone, that he may be focused solely on the sandwich before him, content to be doing what his body calls him to do.
But knowing doesn't make the ache go away.
I simply can't abide the fraying thread loosing itself from one anchor, that missed opportunity, the selfish oversight, the phone that rings while I turn and walk away.
See, I know a thing or two about unanswered phones.
The one that still haunts me today rang unanswered in my college bedroom one early Saturday morning, the result of a plan I'd forged with my former boyfriend the night before.
That phone call was my chance to see Jerry again. Jerry, whose body had been ravaged by bone cancer. Jerry who was heading to New York for yet another treatment. Even though we were no longer dating, we both still enjoyed each other and so, when he proposed I drive with him to the airport the next morning, it sounded like a grand idea.
So, why did I just sit there and listen to the phone ring? I was up. I had no plans. And yet I let the phone ring until it rang no more.
Jerry died a few months later and I am left to live with that phone call. I may never be able to answer that one.
Maybe that's why the last firefly of the summer leaves me hollow. Because a part of me wonders if, somewhere in the garden, another firefly sees the pulsing glow, but chooses to turn away and let the other think he is the last.
Needless to say, I pick up the phone now.
That's when a lone firefly flashed his "open" sign across the tops of the goldenrod, hoping a lithe passerby might take him up on his offer. No other light pulsed in response, though, and I followed his scattered trail across the yard, his abdomen swollen with longing, his lighted trail empty behind him.
I know that it is a human impulse to assign our species' qualities to others. I know that this firefly probably didn't go home and etch a glowing note of despair before offing himself in the basement. I know these things but, when I see the last firefly of summer tapping out his Morse Code across the night sky, I cannot help but feel an ache inside.
It's the same ache I feel when I see a kid eating alone in our noisy lunchroom, surrounded by sharks and minnows, schools of frantic classmates who seem to look every way but his. I know that this kid, like the firefly, may not give a whit about being alone, that he may be focused solely on the sandwich before him, content to be doing what his body calls him to do.
But knowing doesn't make the ache go away.
I simply can't abide the fraying thread loosing itself from one anchor, that missed opportunity, the selfish oversight, the phone that rings while I turn and walk away.
See, I know a thing or two about unanswered phones.
The one that still haunts me today rang unanswered in my college bedroom one early Saturday morning, the result of a plan I'd forged with my former boyfriend the night before.
That phone call was my chance to see Jerry again. Jerry, whose body had been ravaged by bone cancer. Jerry who was heading to New York for yet another treatment. Even though we were no longer dating, we both still enjoyed each other and so, when he proposed I drive with him to the airport the next morning, it sounded like a grand idea.
So, why did I just sit there and listen to the phone ring? I was up. I had no plans. And yet I let the phone ring until it rang no more.
Jerry died a few months later and I am left to live with that phone call. I may never be able to answer that one.
Maybe that's why the last firefly of the summer leaves me hollow. Because a part of me wonders if, somewhere in the garden, another firefly sees the pulsing glow, but chooses to turn away and let the other think he is the last.
Needless to say, I pick up the phone now.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Breaking B(re)ad
Thanks to Netflix, I occasionally dabble in the Dynamic! Exciting! and over-priced world of cable television--and all for just $8 a month (take that, Time Warner!). One Saturday afternoon last winter, when my get up and go had gotten up and gone, I logged onto Netflix to find out what all the fuss was over the series "Breaking Bad."
I made it through a couple of episodes before calling "uncle."
I'm sure it's just me--naive, unhip, bright-side-of-life me--but all of those blood-soaked wood floors, the acrid, science-gone-wrong creations, the heaps of meth-laced Benjamins left me feeling icky and hollow. I mean, the guy's a teacher, for Pete's sake!
At the very least, it seems only right that I'd object on professional grounds. Surely, there's enough mediocrity out there to sully my profession's reputation, without throwing in all that Sudafed, lye and violence.
That's why I'm feverishly working on the script for a new teacher-based television series, tentatively called "Breaking B(re)ad: A Staff Lounge Gone All Happy and Share-y." Yeah, I know. It's Family Channel or bust for this one.
But it does speak truth, at least for me. Because, when I'm at work, the one place that continually feeds both my body and my soul is the staff lounge, an under-decorated room filled with leftover chairs and wobbly-legged tables that, each noon hour, also fills with people who are looking for a break from both their fast and their fast-lane lives as educators.
Granted, it is a noisy place. But, if we are lucky (and, at East, we are lucky), the root of that noise isn't incessant complaining about teenaged clients gone wacko, but rather the giddiness that comes from getting together and doing something different for a half hour. Much of my RDA of laughter comes from that room. As does an impressive flow of interesting life stories and, on occasion, two grocery sacks of ripe, home-grown peaches there for the taking.
When someone new comes to East (and, this year, we've got about 25 new folks), I always put in a pitch for eating lunch in the lounge. In a job filled with such high stakes, not to mention so many angst-filled, Axe-soaked teens, lunch in the lounge can act like a lifeline, a joyful reprieve from all the meth and violence of the larger world looming just outside our doors.
I made it through a couple of episodes before calling "uncle."
I'm sure it's just me--naive, unhip, bright-side-of-life me--but all of those blood-soaked wood floors, the acrid, science-gone-wrong creations, the heaps of meth-laced Benjamins left me feeling icky and hollow. I mean, the guy's a teacher, for Pete's sake!
At the very least, it seems only right that I'd object on professional grounds. Surely, there's enough mediocrity out there to sully my profession's reputation, without throwing in all that Sudafed, lye and violence.
That's why I'm feverishly working on the script for a new teacher-based television series, tentatively called "Breaking B(re)ad: A Staff Lounge Gone All Happy and Share-y." Yeah, I know. It's Family Channel or bust for this one.
But it does speak truth, at least for me. Because, when I'm at work, the one place that continually feeds both my body and my soul is the staff lounge, an under-decorated room filled with leftover chairs and wobbly-legged tables that, each noon hour, also fills with people who are looking for a break from both their fast and their fast-lane lives as educators.
Granted, it is a noisy place. But, if we are lucky (and, at East, we are lucky), the root of that noise isn't incessant complaining about teenaged clients gone wacko, but rather the giddiness that comes from getting together and doing something different for a half hour. Much of my RDA of laughter comes from that room. As does an impressive flow of interesting life stories and, on occasion, two grocery sacks of ripe, home-grown peaches there for the taking.
When someone new comes to East (and, this year, we've got about 25 new folks), I always put in a pitch for eating lunch in the lounge. In a job filled with such high stakes, not to mention so many angst-filled, Axe-soaked teens, lunch in the lounge can act like a lifeline, a joyful reprieve from all the meth and violence of the larger world looming just outside our doors.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Natural Selection
When I was a young girl, I was chased by a Doberman Pinscher outside of Morrill Hall. That morning, I was with my grandmother Shepard, an eccentric artist who always seemed to keep her cool, and maybe her distance, too. It took me a long time not to fear that particular breed, although the incident did make me grateful for the dust, bones and refuge of that building, not to mention my grandmother's steely courage.
This Saturday morning, Allison peppered me with a proposition that involved visiting Morrill Hall. It'd been a handful of years since I had visited that museum, pulled away from its entrance by growing children who had burgeoning, disparate interests, most of them now rooted in not spending time at home or with family. Fortunately, after just a bit of Allison's cajoling (I had, after all, countered her offer with an alternate destination--the hippy cliffs of Pioneers Park), we agreed to head downtown after lunch.
What a fine decision that was.
Like a well-written premiere of a much-touted television series, our visit to Morrill Hall offered me a happy peek into Allison's future, and I left the place wanting more. Several times, Allison whipped out her cell phone, not to text a friend but, rather, to record an interesting fact or the name of a long-extinct species she didn't want to forget.
For someone who has been battling a mild case of the nerves as the first day of Zoo School approaches, Morrill Hall proved to be the perfect antidote.
We ended the day on our backs, scanning the night skies for the thumb-smeared silver streaks of stray meteors, while the last warmth of summer leeched into our bones.
That night, I went to bed deeply happy and firmly centered, grateful that nature has played such a main-stage role in our children's lives, even if other players have occasionally taken away the limelight. Somewhere, deep in their bones, both Allison and Eric still recognize the clear "fee-hee" of a chickadee's song, revel in the cecropria moth flitting through our garden, appreciate the long shadows of the setting sun against the backdrop of mixed-grass prairie.
Some nights, as I drift off to sleep, I tell myself that these are the bible stories of my children's lives, the marrow that feeds them as they head into the desert, unafraid of what they might find there.
This Saturday morning, Allison peppered me with a proposition that involved visiting Morrill Hall. It'd been a handful of years since I had visited that museum, pulled away from its entrance by growing children who had burgeoning, disparate interests, most of them now rooted in not spending time at home or with family. Fortunately, after just a bit of Allison's cajoling (I had, after all, countered her offer with an alternate destination--the hippy cliffs of Pioneers Park), we agreed to head downtown after lunch.
What a fine decision that was.
Like a well-written premiere of a much-touted television series, our visit to Morrill Hall offered me a happy peek into Allison's future, and I left the place wanting more. Several times, Allison whipped out her cell phone, not to text a friend but, rather, to record an interesting fact or the name of a long-extinct species she didn't want to forget.
For someone who has been battling a mild case of the nerves as the first day of Zoo School approaches, Morrill Hall proved to be the perfect antidote.
We ended the day on our backs, scanning the night skies for the thumb-smeared silver streaks of stray meteors, while the last warmth of summer leeched into our bones.
That night, I went to bed deeply happy and firmly centered, grateful that nature has played such a main-stage role in our children's lives, even if other players have occasionally taken away the limelight. Somewhere, deep in their bones, both Allison and Eric still recognize the clear "fee-hee" of a chickadee's song, revel in the cecropria moth flitting through our garden, appreciate the long shadows of the setting sun against the backdrop of mixed-grass prairie.
Some nights, as I drift off to sleep, I tell myself that these are the bible stories of my children's lives, the marrow that feeds them as they head into the desert, unafraid of what they might find there.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Dear John/Jane/Juan,
As the school year revs up, it seems to me that educators have overlooked a golden opportunity to reach out to one incredibly valuable group of people--namely, parents.
Sure, as parents of school-aged children, we regularly rip open every piece of school-related mail addressed to our children. Sure, we're the ones who often get stuck filling out the forms, writing the lunch-account checks, taking the kids to the doctor for their physical, standing in line for the school counselor, walking the aisles of Target, scouring for school supplies and semi-suitable outfits.
But each of those activities is nothing more than an act of vicarious--often pricey--living that leaves us feeling broke, blah and befuddled.
What if, each August, the schools wrote a letter just to the parents? In my fantasy world, that letter might look something like this:
Dear LPS Parents (Better yet? Dear Jane and Mark, )
First of all, you look mah-velous. And, in two short weeks, you also will look contented and well-rested, as your darling chitlins start spending their daylight hours somewhere else...at least until they turn 18 when, legally, they have a right to drop out of school and live, full-time (and, probably, fully unemployed), in the funky-smelling, junk-strewn basement bedroom they've pretty much destroyed already.
Ah, but we digress, . . . .
As your child tries to anticipate what it is that the popular kids will wear and carry with them this fall, we thought you might appreciate your own set of pointers, so that you, too, could navigate the public-school waters with confidence and a bit of style. Below, then, are some things we'd like you to keep in mind.
•Make sure your child has some breakfast every morning. Preferably something without the name "Cap'n," "McMuffin," or "Red Bull" in it.
•Beyond the Trapper Keepers, Justin Bieber mini posters and Axe aerosol cans, it would be fantastic if your child's backpack also had a pen and some paper in it. Don't forget that banks still give away free pens now and then.
•Please don't send your child an hourly text message. As vital as it may be to know who is in her class or what the teacher is wearing, these messages also can, on occasion, interrupt a class lesson.
•Find a black Sharpie and draw a line on a piece of paper. On one side of the line, write "My life." On the other side, "My child's life." Post this paper on your bathroom mirror and do your best not to confuse the two sections.
•Finally, as hard as this may be to believe, all of your child's teachers and paras and principals and school cooks and counselors and custodians are doing their best. They aren't the enemy. They aren't after your child. And they don't sleep in coffins filled with spiders and snakes. Actually they are real people, just like you and your child. Really, really tired people, but people, nonetheless. And they are mah-velous, just like you.
Thanks so much and have a great year!
Your School Staff
Sure, as parents of school-aged children, we regularly rip open every piece of school-related mail addressed to our children. Sure, we're the ones who often get stuck filling out the forms, writing the lunch-account checks, taking the kids to the doctor for their physical, standing in line for the school counselor, walking the aisles of Target, scouring for school supplies and semi-suitable outfits.
But each of those activities is nothing more than an act of vicarious--often pricey--living that leaves us feeling broke, blah and befuddled.
What if, each August, the schools wrote a letter just to the parents? In my fantasy world, that letter might look something like this:
Dear LPS Parents (Better yet? Dear Jane and Mark, )
First of all, you look mah-velous. And, in two short weeks, you also will look contented and well-rested, as your darling chitlins start spending their daylight hours somewhere else...at least until they turn 18 when, legally, they have a right to drop out of school and live, full-time (and, probably, fully unemployed), in the funky-smelling, junk-strewn basement bedroom they've pretty much destroyed already.
Ah, but we digress, . . . .
As your child tries to anticipate what it is that the popular kids will wear and carry with them this fall, we thought you might appreciate your own set of pointers, so that you, too, could navigate the public-school waters with confidence and a bit of style. Below, then, are some things we'd like you to keep in mind.
•Make sure your child has some breakfast every morning. Preferably something without the name "Cap'n," "McMuffin," or "Red Bull" in it.
•Beyond the Trapper Keepers, Justin Bieber mini posters and Axe aerosol cans, it would be fantastic if your child's backpack also had a pen and some paper in it. Don't forget that banks still give away free pens now and then.
•Please don't send your child an hourly text message. As vital as it may be to know who is in her class or what the teacher is wearing, these messages also can, on occasion, interrupt a class lesson.
•Find a black Sharpie and draw a line on a piece of paper. On one side of the line, write "My life." On the other side, "My child's life." Post this paper on your bathroom mirror and do your best not to confuse the two sections.
•Finally, as hard as this may be to believe, all of your child's teachers and paras and principals and school cooks and counselors and custodians are doing their best. They aren't the enemy. They aren't after your child. And they don't sleep in coffins filled with spiders and snakes. Actually they are real people, just like you and your child. Really, really tired people, but people, nonetheless. And they are mah-velous, just like you.
Thanks so much and have a great year!
Your School Staff
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Time Bandits And Kung-Fu Focus
I am not a particularly fast reader, but I am diligent (assuming a person can be diligent in 15-minute chunks). So, when a book manages to sink its luscious claws into me and I also have a nice pile of time on my plate, I am like Greg Louganis leaping off of third tower--diving in completely and deeply.
These past two days--when I wasn't working or eating or sleeping or walking Finn--I covered myself with the mesmerizing words of Neil Gaiman's "The Ocean at the End of the Lane," a strange, sometimes frightening, beautiful little book that somehow managed to tell me its story in 48 hours' time, despite me feeling like I've known its characters all of my life.
Compelling stories have a way of bending time, of fuzzying its edges and stretching its skin.
As I type this, I keep looking up from the keyboard, my eyes falling on the now-closed book laying on the desk across from me. And I can't help feeling that Lettie Hempstock is--this very minute--writing herself new adventures in the white spaces between the words I just read. Like a dream whose storyline seems to have started long ago, or an accident that I speed past on my way to work, surely these events and characters were unfolding before I arrived and will continue to play themselves out long after I've dropped their hard-bound home into the "return" slot.
It's been a summer of great, absorbing reads, stories I've eaten up both slowly and in the blink of an eye.
Turns out, these books did more than just provide me with good stories--stories of rolling prairies ("My Antonia"), disparate friendships ("Dreams of Significant Girls"), distended bowels ("Gulp"), disturbing histories ("Molokai"), dystopian futures ("Insurgent" and "Son"), love and heartache ("Tell the Wolves I'm Home"), borrowed lives ("Every Day"), misunderstood spark ("My Name is Mina") and mystical childhoods ("The Ocean at the End of the Lane").
These books also have reminded me of the wisdom of being present, taking the time, and diving in. While people these days show a capacity for diving in (if not the discernment to decide what, exactly, they are diving into), we really aren't so great at the other two--being present and taking the time. But that's where books come in.
A well-told story requires patience and focus, small prices to pay for the rewards that it delivers. Namely, a richer, deeper, more connected life, even if you are 51 and happen to live just a stone's throw from where you were born.
These past two days--when I wasn't working or eating or sleeping or walking Finn--I covered myself with the mesmerizing words of Neil Gaiman's "The Ocean at the End of the Lane," a strange, sometimes frightening, beautiful little book that somehow managed to tell me its story in 48 hours' time, despite me feeling like I've known its characters all of my life.
Compelling stories have a way of bending time, of fuzzying its edges and stretching its skin.
As I type this, I keep looking up from the keyboard, my eyes falling on the now-closed book laying on the desk across from me. And I can't help feeling that Lettie Hempstock is--this very minute--writing herself new adventures in the white spaces between the words I just read. Like a dream whose storyline seems to have started long ago, or an accident that I speed past on my way to work, surely these events and characters were unfolding before I arrived and will continue to play themselves out long after I've dropped their hard-bound home into the "return" slot.
It's been a summer of great, absorbing reads, stories I've eaten up both slowly and in the blink of an eye.
Turns out, these books did more than just provide me with good stories--stories of rolling prairies ("My Antonia"), disparate friendships ("Dreams of Significant Girls"), distended bowels ("Gulp"), disturbing histories ("Molokai"), dystopian futures ("Insurgent" and "Son"), love and heartache ("Tell the Wolves I'm Home"), borrowed lives ("Every Day"), misunderstood spark ("My Name is Mina") and mystical childhoods ("The Ocean at the End of the Lane").
These books also have reminded me of the wisdom of being present, taking the time, and diving in. While people these days show a capacity for diving in (if not the discernment to decide what, exactly, they are diving into), we really aren't so great at the other two--being present and taking the time. But that's where books come in.
A well-told story requires patience and focus, small prices to pay for the rewards that it delivers. Namely, a richer, deeper, more connected life, even if you are 51 and happen to live just a stone's throw from where you were born.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Late-Night Lamentation
Twenty years into this thing and I've never established a good night-time "check in" plan for my kids. When you fall asleep at 9 p.m. most nights, you're never going to win the "Best Parent" award for making sure the chitlins are safe and settled in their beds.
For some reason, though, last night I found myself laying in bed, fretting about teens for three, long, sweaty hours. And I knew that my daughter was downstairs.
Why all the fuss, then? Was I doing a little parental penance for all those restful, silent nights I have had, unconscious and unconcerned that my kids had returned to their home, safe and sound?
I think the fretting was framed mostly in my gratitude that Allison had gotten to spend the evening with two friends she'd met at a film camp this summer. These two kids found their way to Lincoln--one from Omaha, the other from Fairbury--to spend some time together. Even before they left our house for the county fair, I found myself worrying about their late-night drives home.
I'm not the greatest night-time driver, especially on the interstate, where cars go much faster than I'd care to travel, not to mention the way the night sky sucks up all the lights around me and makes me doubt what I think is a curve just ahead.
And so, for three hours last night, I battled images of a tired teenaged boy, alone in his Honda CRV, trying to maneuver his way onto the interstate, weaving between drunk drivers and highway dividers. I imagined a tired dad nodding off on the way back home, his daughter asleep in the seat next to him.
Finally, around 1 a.m., I got out of bed to face what I was sure was the tragic soundtrack of these young lives. Instead, I found Allison, alone in the basement, listening quietly to music while roaming the Internet. Assuming I was in a sleep-induced stupor, she was unable to understand my concern, her friends long gone, already home, tucked in by parents who stayed up to long enough say "hi."
My desire for my children's safety--and the safety of other people's children--is both deep seeded and delusional. There are times when that concern clouds everything and weighs too heavily on my shoulders. Those are the days when I wake to the latest news in Eric's new neighborhood, most of that news bad. Those are the days I wake to find that Allison is that much closer to the next chapter of her life, and I imagine myself stunned and on my haunches, wondering what I am supposed to do next.
In my own childhood--happily devoid of bike helmets and closed-toed shoes, yet surprisingly safe, nonetheless--I don't believe I spent a single moment pondering my parents' concerns, their long nights of broken sleep as they fretted about their children's futures. I now realize that they carried out their job in the best possible way--silently, stuffing down their concerns just long enough to make their kids feel free and happy.
Against all odds--despite all the rotten things and sick people in this world--Allison's friends found their way home last night, happily oblivious of the mother they barely knew, the middle-aged woman who fought off sleep to stand vigil for them.
For some reason, though, last night I found myself laying in bed, fretting about teens for three, long, sweaty hours. And I knew that my daughter was downstairs.
Why all the fuss, then? Was I doing a little parental penance for all those restful, silent nights I have had, unconscious and unconcerned that my kids had returned to their home, safe and sound?
I think the fretting was framed mostly in my gratitude that Allison had gotten to spend the evening with two friends she'd met at a film camp this summer. These two kids found their way to Lincoln--one from Omaha, the other from Fairbury--to spend some time together. Even before they left our house for the county fair, I found myself worrying about their late-night drives home.
I'm not the greatest night-time driver, especially on the interstate, where cars go much faster than I'd care to travel, not to mention the way the night sky sucks up all the lights around me and makes me doubt what I think is a curve just ahead.
And so, for three hours last night, I battled images of a tired teenaged boy, alone in his Honda CRV, trying to maneuver his way onto the interstate, weaving between drunk drivers and highway dividers. I imagined a tired dad nodding off on the way back home, his daughter asleep in the seat next to him.
Finally, around 1 a.m., I got out of bed to face what I was sure was the tragic soundtrack of these young lives. Instead, I found Allison, alone in the basement, listening quietly to music while roaming the Internet. Assuming I was in a sleep-induced stupor, she was unable to understand my concern, her friends long gone, already home, tucked in by parents who stayed up to long enough say "hi."
My desire for my children's safety--and the safety of other people's children--is both deep seeded and delusional. There are times when that concern clouds everything and weighs too heavily on my shoulders. Those are the days when I wake to the latest news in Eric's new neighborhood, most of that news bad. Those are the days I wake to find that Allison is that much closer to the next chapter of her life, and I imagine myself stunned and on my haunches, wondering what I am supposed to do next.
In my own childhood--happily devoid of bike helmets and closed-toed shoes, yet surprisingly safe, nonetheless--I don't believe I spent a single moment pondering my parents' concerns, their long nights of broken sleep as they fretted about their children's futures. I now realize that they carried out their job in the best possible way--silently, stuffing down their concerns just long enough to make their kids feel free and happy.
Against all odds--despite all the rotten things and sick people in this world--Allison's friends found their way home last night, happily oblivious of the mother they barely knew, the middle-aged woman who fought off sleep to stand vigil for them.
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