A Break

I’m feeling sentimental about M going to kindergarten. She will be off on her own journey and before I know it she will be in junior high and beyond. I’ve discovered this phenomenon by watching the boys. Kindergarten seemed the first defining moment of the rest of their lives. A certain independence emerges that year. Maybe it’s the reading, maybe it’s the “public” nature of public school. Might be the fact that on the playground they are lost in a crowd.

Whatever it is, kindergarten changes everything. Even thought the date is months away, I have found myself watching her, pulling her to me, indulging her make-believe games. I’m hanging onto these moments.

Every morning she awakens and comes to sleep the rest of the morning in my bed. I always awaken to her warm body next to mine and my husband always awakens to an elbow in his back. Lately, I’ve been staying awake a while to watch her sleep. There will soon be a time where she will be so big, “too big.”

So quick this passes.

***

This week is Easter Break and the children have been great. I don’t feel nearly as drained as I usually do. I’m relaxed even though I’ve got a lot of work to do for my own classes. I’ll be sorry when school starts up again. As we drove today to the candy and ice cream shop, Scoops, in Monrovia, I realized that I have this wonderful family of slackers. We LOVE not going to school or work.

We LOVE it and are happiest when we have no responsibility to anybody. We listened to the Doors on the C.D. player with windows rolled down and Sassy jumping all over us.

Lovely.

***

A got his bass guitar this week and had his first lesson tonight. We bought the guitar from the Fret House in Covina. The place is a throw-back to the 70’s – the owners are totally laid back and seem to have a real passion for the art of the guitar. What matters to these owners isn’t the money, but the guitar. Tens of them hang from the ceiling and line the walls. Books fill the aisles and amps of all ages haunt the corners. The Fret House has a basement where musicians play every weekend. Stuck to the door of the entrance to the basement were several fliers for musicians. One was looking for a bass player to play gigs and just have fun and had to be influenced by Nirvana, X, and the Misfits. The player also had to be between 17 and 19 years old.

Our future?

“Backdoor Man” is playing now and I’m glad the boys have an outlet of energy, of creativity. Hopefully their enjoyment of music will last. Hopefully, all three of them will find their ways in our complicated, responsibility-laden society.

Must go…papers to grade.