Slow Going
I pull out of our driveway to the tune of Eli’s whining. He’s giving it all he’s got: bottom lip curled under, eyebrows in a knot - he’s so upset. It’s only five minutes to the park, where HE wanted to go. Five minutes or not, I know the time in the car as he bawls is going to pass slowly. Ever. So. Slowly. He cries and insists on what he wants.
-Park. Park!
I give it a little more gas, turn right on red, and try to comfort him. He is quieter now – too upset for drama, he’s crying real tears, which makes me sad. I remember what it’s like to be little. However slowly the time passes for me, it must be a hundred times slower for a little boy.
When I was a little girl, Slow followed me. Incessantly. She was my enemy, always showing up uninvited, and sticking around too long. She was there during naptime, rainy days, Sunday school, and church. She rode beside me in the car on every road trip.
Slow hid behind the furniture and crept in through cracked doors. She rode with the man on the ice cream truck and distracted the mailman when he had packages for me. She came in through my window each year on the night before my birthday and stayed awake with me, wide-eyed, for hours.
She stood with me at the chalkboard in math class, sat in the front row as I stammered through book reports. She came with suitcases every May, and settled in to the classroom until the last day of school. But she never stayed for summer, and it went too quickly.
As I have grown, Slow has lost interest in me. She hardly visited at all through my twenties. She just slipped in and out from time to time, at the doctor’s office, job interviews, first dates, and many a lingering, hung-over Sunday. In those days, she was content to simply shadow the waitress at happy hour, to postpone payday, to extend my period.
These days, her interests are not so trivial. Now she spends time with me at funerals, waits with me at the hospital; She labored with me when both of my children were born. She witnesses my arguments, encourages my apologies, sympathizes with my worries. The older I get, the more I long for her presence. I ache for her to sit with me in simple independent pleasures, as I read or write, while my children nap. But she doesn’t join me; I am sure she sits instead with the children, so as to keep her young, I suppose.
I have invited her to tickle fights with Elias, to cuddle time with Alena Mae, but she doesn’t come and the moments flit by. I miss her. But not today. Today, she is with us in the car on the endless five-minute drive to the park.
Finally, I pull to the curb, announce our arrival, and jump out to free Eli. Tears are still wet on his face when he sees the park and laughs. Once out of the car, we must only cross the street and we’re there.
We’re here, Eli! Are you ready to play in the park?
I pick him up to cross the street - we’ll get there faster. But he balks and wiggles free. He takes my hand and leads me in the opposite direction.
Walk!
I smile at him through clenched teeth and refuse to rush him. He and Slow are so happy, walking hand-in-hand.
Yes, Elias. You can do it. You can walk all by yourself.
So she comes again and again when she is least welcome and too often I wish her away. But she stays when she will. And I’m learning to appreciate her ways.
-Park. Park!
I give it a little more gas, turn right on red, and try to comfort him. He is quieter now – too upset for drama, he’s crying real tears, which makes me sad. I remember what it’s like to be little. However slowly the time passes for me, it must be a hundred times slower for a little boy.
When I was a little girl, Slow followed me. Incessantly. She was my enemy, always showing up uninvited, and sticking around too long. She was there during naptime, rainy days, Sunday school, and church. She rode beside me in the car on every road trip.
Slow hid behind the furniture and crept in through cracked doors. She rode with the man on the ice cream truck and distracted the mailman when he had packages for me. She came in through my window each year on the night before my birthday and stayed awake with me, wide-eyed, for hours.
She stood with me at the chalkboard in math class, sat in the front row as I stammered through book reports. She came with suitcases every May, and settled in to the classroom until the last day of school. But she never stayed for summer, and it went too quickly.
As I have grown, Slow has lost interest in me. She hardly visited at all through my twenties. She just slipped in and out from time to time, at the doctor’s office, job interviews, first dates, and many a lingering, hung-over Sunday. In those days, she was content to simply shadow the waitress at happy hour, to postpone payday, to extend my period.
These days, her interests are not so trivial. Now she spends time with me at funerals, waits with me at the hospital; She labored with me when both of my children were born. She witnesses my arguments, encourages my apologies, sympathizes with my worries. The older I get, the more I long for her presence. I ache for her to sit with me in simple independent pleasures, as I read or write, while my children nap. But she doesn’t join me; I am sure she sits instead with the children, so as to keep her young, I suppose.
I have invited her to tickle fights with Elias, to cuddle time with Alena Mae, but she doesn’t come and the moments flit by. I miss her. But not today. Today, she is with us in the car on the endless five-minute drive to the park.
Finally, I pull to the curb, announce our arrival, and jump out to free Eli. Tears are still wet on his face when he sees the park and laughs. Once out of the car, we must only cross the street and we’re there.
We’re here, Eli! Are you ready to play in the park?
I pick him up to cross the street - we’ll get there faster. But he balks and wiggles free. He takes my hand and leads me in the opposite direction.
Walk!
I smile at him through clenched teeth and refuse to rush him. He and Slow are so happy, walking hand-in-hand.
Yes, Elias. You can do it. You can walk all by yourself.
So she comes again and again when she is least welcome and too often I wish her away. But she stays when she will. And I’m learning to appreciate her ways.
(This post is in response to this week's Mama Says Om Theme: Slow.)
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