When I was a little girl, I got off the bus near the soccer field at Nyack College, and waited for my mom to walk up from the hospital where she worked, and walk me home. UP is the operative word here, South Nyack rises 500 feet in 1/2 mile from the Hudson River, all the roads I grew up on were switched back, and everyone’s house walked out onto ground from the basement, but the 1st or even second floor on the other side. Everyone’s lawns were terraced.
At first I thought waitig for my Mom to walk me home was so boreing. Why didn’t mom hire a babysitter like before? What was I supposed to do with myself for 20 min at the corner of the soccer field? The Nyack campus used to be a classy hotel, a president even stayed there. Lovely stone walls are everywhere. At that time, the stone wall was missing one block in the middle, and I could use it as a toe hold to climb up to where birds had planted some dogwood trees, and the pacasandra grew in big swirls around the grass. It became the time to watch the Hudson River, the Tapan Zee bridge, read library books, watch clouds, pretend I was a space princess, climb the trees…it became wonderful.
This Summer B started taking flute lessons. It happened sort of accidentally, but he was good at it, loved his teacher, so we just made room in the budget, trained B to set the oven timer so he really did put in 30 min a day, and his teacher adores him (because he practices and makes progress, and is polite and responsible). But the flute teacher’s house is half an hour’s drive away from mine. So instead of making dinner as usual on Tuesday nights, we have an hour of driving plus a half hour of waiting for B while the little kids and I…well it has developed like my soccer field days.
We keep a bag packed in the car with some crayons, M’s copy of shoots and ladders, water bottles, and the complete Whinnie the Pooh. In Summer there was just time for one half of a chapter sitting on the grass on a blanket, then M would eat his snack, and B then would come out. Actually, last Summer I usually forgot the water bottles. Mrs L’s house is in a wooded area near an Audubond Sanctuary, so it was quite cooler than our house, fortunately, those forgotten water bottles were emotionally fraught. Did you grow up with water bottles? I think we were always just thirsty when I was a kid.
4:30 is B’s usual lesson time. In the Summer and Fall, we had enough light until the lesson is done. Now we watch the sun set as we drive over. But running around in the snow in the light of the street lights is actually fun. Sometimes we go into Mrs L’s studio, there is enough room to let K crawl around, and not a whole lot for her to damage, but I prefer to stay in the yard, I can ‘t read Pooh out loud in the same studio as B’s lesson. We are up to the chapter in which "Piglet is entirely Surrounded by Water."
In these waiting times M gets a chance to see dusk, and play in the slightly creepy shadows, with K and I tagging along all bundled up. I’m looking forward to the Spring when the sunset will move earlier and earlier. M has begun noticing these changes in the light levels because flute lesson is the same time each week, and changes in the trees around Mrs L’s house. It’s sort of a accidental time of nature study, sort of.
Sometimes those trying, boring times become the treasures. I hope M thinks so. I’m enjoying the time to spend with just him and K.