Life’s transitions
I cut the last of the basil yesterday, and my husband and I feasted on the last pesto of the year. Leaves fall thick, fast, and yellow from the walnuts, mulberry, and apricot trees. I rake. My neighbor Bill rakes. More leaves fall.
But the end is in sight. Already bare limbs reach skyward from the tops of the trees. Winter is coming. It is time to move the lemon tree in its pot to the front porch, where it will be protected from frosts.
These seasonal changes are good practice for me. Life brings changes, too. Leaves fall; winter is coming. My daughter calls me to the computer to pay for her online college application submittals; she is going. It is inevitable, but not scary. There will be a spring after this winter; there will be a life After Kids.
Funny: 23 years ago, when our eldest son was born, my husband and I began to refer to our life in terms of BK and AK: Before and After Kids. Now I realize that the past 23 years have not been AK at all. They have been DK, During Kids, and AK will begin next year, God willing.
These transitions are not particularly abrupt. It took nine months and some preparation to go from BK to DK. It is taking time and preparation to go from DK to AK: time in preparing the kid for launch, of course: college applications, visits, SAT’s. But also, since this is the last kid, time in preparing a stay-at-home mom for life AK.
For me, what to do AK is fairly clear: I will rejoin the working world. Like the transition from BK to DK, this transition is occurring gradually and pleasantly. I have been working part time, and two aspects of my life have already changed from DK to working world.
The first is my wardrobe. Twenty-three years ago, I happily kicked off my pumps, unpeeled my nylons, and slid into jeans and a T-shirt. For almost a quarter of a century, I have been either barefoot or wearing running shoes. Which sweatshirt to wear to the grocery store has been the highest fashion choice I needed to make.
But over the last 18 months, I have gradually reacquired a business-casual wardrobe, and I like it. I like wearing skirts, and choosing a sweater or a blazer to coordinate. Even the nylons are not nearly as bad as I remembered.
The other working world attribute that I have reacquired is driving. Back in the days BK, I commuted from Walnut Creek or Pleasanton to Vallejo. I would step into the car in the morning, turn the key in the ignition, and go into a trance.
I knew every foot of my commute route: where the traffic was apt to bog and how to get around it, when to hug the right lane, when the left, and when the better part of valor was to abandon the freeway altogether for a quick zip by frontage road.
I could spot a hole in the traffic before it opened, and snake across four lanes of traffic into a momentarily open lane without causing a single driver around me to touch his brakes or utter an imprecation. At least, as far as I know.
Then I had a baby and stopped commuting. My driving became staid, slow, and mellow. I avoided driving during rush hour, and began to refer to aggressive drivers disparagingly as “zoomers” and “time-bandits” – meaning people who stole car-lengths and seconds from other drivers in order to get to work three minutes earlier.
Last year I began commuting again. About a month ago, I happened to drive my family to Cupertino, and the route coincided with my commute route. And my husband, after a half-hour of tightening his seatbelt, and bracing himself in his seat like grim death, turned to me and said, in a quiet, horrified voice, “You zoomer.”
I have been trying to mellow out ever since. But it is hard, especially when my fellow commuters insist on leaving a hole open three car lengths ahead and four lanes over.
Cynthia Anne Walker is a homeschooling mother of three and former engineer. She is a published, independent author. Her column appears each Saturday.
