This morning, I’m at the wheel of the school carpool when, ahead of me, a boy steps off the curb. He jaywalks on the wide, leafy street where the morning sun bathes every grass blade and tree trunk like a mother attending her newborn, shambles in the way of kids whose circadian rhythms are in profound disagreement with bell schedules. My car is blooming with equally hazy children. I watch him not watching me and come to a full stop in the middle of the street. He’s in front of my right bumper before he notices the five thousand pounds of idling boron steel and aluminum and instead of pausing, lifts one hand, holding it low at his left hip, relaxed, part appreciation, part assumption that the world will wait for him. That this is the way of things. His light brown hair is artfully mussed, as spiny as a Suisun thistle. He crosses, unhurried.
A quarter mile down the road, closer to the school, two more kids step into the street in front of me without checking for cars. It’s a crosswalk, but my heart still twists at their blind faith, their germinal prefrontal cortexes and heedless innocence that are the mulch of this March day. The air holds the scent of fresh dew, and contrails knit the blue sky.
Near the drop-off, a woman pulls at the leash of a black and white cockapoo while four small children swirl in her wake, scattering, petals in a current. I creep along with a scrum of cars navigating the eddies, some drivers oblivious to their speed, what they move toward, and the small margin of error. I want to call to them, “Kids are sleepwalking here!” I want to holler to the children, “Wake up!” Instead, rolling to a stop, I tell my drowsy carload, “Look both ways. Please.” In side yards, camellias flutter and lilies-of-the-valley nod.
It’s not enough, I know. The young will do what they do, leaving the sheltering canopy and turning their faces to the sun like a field of swaying poppies, and my reminder will wisp like last night’s dreams. I was like that too once up on a time, before I felt the clenching of a mother’s heart. It takes my breath away, what we entrust to one another, the tenderest buds.
Ann with Travel Journal
Ann Guy was born in the Philippines, grew up in Western Michigan, and now lives in Oakland, California. She received her MFA in creative nonfiction and her MA in English with creative writing in fiction from San Francisco State University, where she received a Graduate Award for Distinguished Achievement from both programs. Her words appear in River Teeth, Southeast Review, Hippocampus Magazine, Craft Literary, Sweet Lit, Beautiful Things, Entropy, MUTHA, Ekphrastic Review, Literary Mama, and elsewhere. She is at work on a historical and speculative fiction novel about survival, migration, and breaking rules. Find her at www.ann-guy.com.
Image Credit: Flickr Creative Commons/rumpleteaser
