#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Up early to see if I can be of any help on the first day of school. It’s pouring rain, and early. But the bus is coming. There are umbrellas. There is reluctance and nerves and then calm and then enthusiasm and my daughter gets a call while he’s still eating: Are they coming to the bus stop her friend asks. The bus will be there in three minutes. So the three of us run upstairs and out the door. My car, fortunately, is sitting right there, the key inside. The plan to walk to the bus stop up our long driveway under umbrellas is scrapped. We are in an emergency. I drive us up the shared driveways and stop at our neighbor’s driveway. The other mothers and kids are at the top of the driveway, and the bus is stopped, the traffic is stopped, and we must run. Now Wave is happily engaged—there is drama and excitement at the bus stop. Will he miss his very first bus? My stomach turns. I was always terrified of missing it as a child. But we are running up the hill in the rain and his friend Gave is yelling happily and the bus is waiting and the traffic in both directions is waiting and we make it across the street and the boys go up the steps and they are off. Since we’re already in the car my daughter asks me to drive us for coffee and I do. We are happy and relieved. I go for a walk and a swim and then I meet a poetry friend and have my hair done and have two more online meetings and he is home from school playing with Gabe and my daughter wonders if they will ever be able to part after getting home on the bus. I make him chicken parmesan. He is hungry. And he had a pretty good first day. I was sorry to hear about Gloria Steinem passing today. A flood of memories of her influence on my years from the late 70’s on. What an icon. Thank goodness she was born.