car diet wrong (but oh-so right) . july 10 . 2006—
It's not easy going without our beloved car. The hardest thing, I think, is that there is no last-minute resort-to. No stop-gap. No plan B. No wiggle room.
If I had to count how many times over the past week we've looked out the window to see the 75 sailing past -- the one that would have made me barely on time -- as I gathered up one last thing, the diapers or the sippy cup full of water or the extra role of film, well, I'd certainly have to venture into double digits. I.e., lots.
Similarly, the coming home, it is not easy. Everett, who's almost four, is a happy, dramatic and lovely child. Unless he's asked to leave something, the park, the birthday party, the perfect wall for walking on. Whatever, he doesn't want to go home most days. And with the car, it was only a struggle into the seatbelt. Often I'd bribe him with a drive through Burgerville, a "maybe we'll stop at..."
Without the car, it's a whole other ball game. He always seems to know we are going straight home once we buckle in the trailer or wait several minutes at a bus stop. I care never to speak again of yesterday, at the 75 stop on 41st and Sandy. It had been a huge struggle getting Everett to the stop in the first place, let alone keeping him from dashing into the street (while some strange man sharing the stop with us wondered why I didn't let Truman down from the bench, to walk, as he clearly wanted to... and I felt like banging his head against the post that showed the array of times the bus might arrive, explaining to him how snatching your one-year-old from the path of an oncoming car once? Is enough).
So. Back to Everett. The bus pulled up, and stopped. He looked at me, mischievious, cute as all get-out, and waited until the door opened. And RAN. Straight to the comic book store we'd passed a half-block away. Let's just say we missed the bus. And let's just say, Everett went without TV for the entire week. There was another time, at the park, with Everett and another nice mom who helped me hold him down as I buckled his helmet on. Boy was that a fun ride home.
But Everett has promised that, once he reaches age four, he'll be good forever. And I've promised myself that I'll start getting ready earlier.
She says to herself: Good luck with that.
Despite the struggles, the chronic lateness, the bruises all over my legs (I'm not so coordinated, and the bike is not so forgiving), I can't tell you how good it feels to pull into my driveway on my bike at the end of a sunny Saturday, boys in tow, and realize I've done all the same things I would have, in a car, but with zero expense on gas and all that other good stuff. I love getting up and getting on my bike to go to a meeting, riding past people watering their lawns and painting their houses and running and, of course, driving their cars. I admit it: I feel oh-so-superior to all those car-bound folks. I'm free of the car and it feels good.
