The Right Car Ride

Taught a piano lesson and then the kids and I decided to drive a new, backroad windy street to get home. We passed a sign on a mailbox that said "free fluffy kittens." Of course we turned around. As we walked up to the door, my 4 o'clock tired blondes, barefoot on gravel drive, I started thinking if you were a psychokiller, how would you get young families to come to your door off the street? Put out a sign that says free fluffy kittens.

Luckily no one answered. The kids were shy anyway, hanging back. They like the sign, they like the adventure, but when it comes to ringing the doorbell, all of us have our hearts in our throat. The Shy Family. Luckily we leave with our hearts in our bodies, no psychokiller and no sneezy kitties.

Nathan the 10 year old and Lilly the 3 year old decide that going home is just too sad a thing to do on a Wednesday that's warm, when the world beckons and there's no dinner already made - so we drop sleepy 9 year old Emma home and head back out to Costco where we can eat pizza and meet friends and buy bagels. Somedays you just don't want to go home early.

In the car, Nathan is playing a song by some band called Fray, and the voice on the song has the scratchy, growly sound of summer, or maybe it's just that there's sun and wind and hope in the car. Suddenly I can see a little of an old screenplay I was working on - it's resurrecting itself, starting a slow dance. Hey, I can feel writing happening again. If I can just hear that song, over and over, maybe the whole story will right itself and I can finally find the missing pieces. Fit them together. I abandoned writing really, with Nathan, raising Nathan to this tall, meaty 10 year height, his gorgeous self. All these actual people in my life, so many I need a minivan. I am lucky.

Anyway, writing comes back. Or at least the hopefulness of it. If you're peaceful enough. That stuff you pack away, give up on, decide is too hard, it's still in there, you just have to have the right music, the right dj, the right car ride.