Took the dogs on a walk after dark today. Weird to go out at night, after 10, what if there's a psychokiller, don't they all roam the neighborhood at night? Braved it anyway, and you know what, it's beautiful out at night. There's no one out there. All the buildings are out there, but even they are sleeping, the world looks very wide without any people in it.
The dogs and I jogged up to school on the path I've taken every morning for six years with the kids. I know every inch of it, a geologist couldn't know more. I walked to and from my own elementary school in Santa Monica and knew every crack, but I have not known and loved the walk to school like I love this one. Because this one I am aware of the passing of time, I can see the world twice - my own elementary walk and now these little people's walk. And I can feel everything, because I have grown to love feeling everything, even the bad things.
I get to school and it's a summer wasteland, summer's only been here one day and it already looks flat with relief from no kids pounding its pavement. Three days ago we watched Nathan graduate from 5th grade in the auditorium, and I didn't cry, except when I was trying to tie his tie and I thought oh my god, someday I'm going to be tying his tie at his wedding and then I had to back off because whoa man, I can't start crying now.
I am havng a love affair with the whole boxy school. The big fat auditorium building, the hamster cage fencing, the open playground, the green poles. I have loved being a part of this school. The dogs and I pass the playground and I see the basketball court and think of how I stopped to play basketball with Nathan during recess on the last week of school. I was trying to leave, running to do one thing or another, and then Lilly was playing with Emma's class on the jungle gym, so I joined Nathan playing his friends at basketball. As we played more kids wanted to join in and it was a cutthroat 10 minutes, Nathan had learned to fake where he was going to throw it and that was new to me - how did he learn that?
Passing the empty schoolyard made me wish there were more moments like that, more time on the playground at this simple school, where will we be without him? What will next year be like?
And then the dogs and I get to the park and there is his preschool, the stone building and it's lit up but silent and the park just yawns out in front of us - look at the dark sky, look at the no people, look I can breathe and stretch and be nobody, be empty, long and free. The dogs and I think nothing as we walk through the grass. We just look and listen and feel Earth.
It's good to go out at night. It's good to sit in a tent with your kids and ignore them when they say they want to go to the beach or go ice skating. There's time for that. It's good to feel your mind relax. Graduation isn't anything. Playing basketball at recess, walking the kids to school. Those twenty minutes. That's everything.
