Avoiding Stale School Bus Air for Muffins and a One-Eyed Squirrel

 I’m not allowed to write in bed. Working in bed could destroy the ambiance that I have carefully balanced there. My sweet bed. I can hear the summer insects singing through the windows there, shaded in pearly colored curtains that look shiny from the dim light filtering through. The ceiling fan rickets back and forth, humming a lullaby. A well-worn quilt lays atop the mattress, all soft and inviting. 

 I remember well those mornings waking up before dawn, half dead, crawling out of bed and putting on clothes for school. The chill of morning air hitting me as I wrapped my jacket around me tighter—a temperature that would be tolerable under more alert circumstances. I remember walking down the street to the bus stop, where all the other semi-awake kids were standing. Then the rush of stale, rank warm air upon entering the bus. The old leather seats had “ass” scratched into their backs. The windows were always a little repulsive, flecked with dirt and specks of unknown origin to be stared at all the way across town. My childhood city bused us all the way across town, instead of sending me to the school a mile up the road. Inter-mixing. 

 A bed is a special place of comfort, but maybe underappreciated unless dragged from it unwillingly. Homeschooling my kids has resulted in limited appreciation of the wonderfulness of bed and sleep. The boy has had difficulty sleeping in his own room lately—nightmares or something. I take one look at his bed strewn with quilts and a beautiful headboard, gold curtains hanging drowsily over the window, Hamie the Hamster peacefully tinkering about his cage, and all I think is Oh, let’s sleep![This is as far as I got before I fell asleep for an hour this evening. Could you tell I was tired?] 

 Yesterday was the first day of public school, and I got the itch to relive that childhood experience. I wanted to wake up at the crack of dawn and enjoy the sleepy house, and the sleepy outdoors. All those early to rise birds already singing, all that fresh air still a little cool, waiting to be appreciated or resented—depending on whether you are a public school kid riding a bus, or not. I wanted to go for a little drive and take it all in. 

 But, we are homeschoolers, after all. We have to embrace our advantages. That meant not leaving the house during rush hour traffic just to witness a bunch of stressed out commuters and slow-going school buses. So, well-rested, we waiting until about ten o’clock, and then treated ourselves to a bakery. Pumpkin muffin in hand, I said to the boy: “Today is the first day of kindergarten”.
 

 I wonder what the boy’s school associations will be. Maybe the sound of his mama turning off the vacuum and muttering “We are starting school in a few minutes!”; or maybe he’d think of the one-eyed squirrel that scampers outside the dining room window while he practices writing at the dining room table. Maybe it will be pumpkin muffins.
 

 

I’m fine with all of the above. They are all an improvement on half-asleep and stale school bus air.