Walking the Baby

We are in the grip of a dangerous, dangerous stretch of cold weather.

The lovely snow we got a few days ago has crystallized, become almost styrofoam.  It crunches firmly underfoot when you walk.  The air is so cold that there is a strange texture to each footstep; you don't slide or slip unless you hesitate and weight has a chance to melt your footing.

Otherwise you are strangely sure-footed.

This doesn't account for ice - formed and reformed in every sunny spot.  Now any you see has set into a hard glaze, a dangerous glaze.  The sun can melt it enough to make walking into skating - and then the shade will solidify it in place with a layer of water - forming a deadly surface.

It was in the middle of this when I headed over to the H's (Mary Flagg's grandkids by blood and marriage) to provide coverage for EH's chi gong class by watching their son TA (age 4) and the newborn girl, PC.

This happens on Wednesday.  This past Wednesday saw me rocketing home - well, riding home - on the METRO bus home from the Orchard.  

The trip had not started well, we had had to stop to pickup some folks stranded by a dead bus (as I had the Monday before).  Still, it was a straight-forward drive back until we picked up a long-faced man on the way in.

He had a face that looked liked skin spray-painted on a stalk of broccoli.  Very square and somewhat craggy.

He was pushing a walker/roller piled high with three big bags of what I hope was laundry, as well as wearing a backpack that looked similarly stuffed.

He remonstrated to the driver about the alacrity with which curves were being taken.  It was making his over-stuffed bags fall over.

This is something of a hallmark for a lot of people who take the bus as their only major mode of transport.  They try to move as much as possible - laundry, groceries, shopping, trying to use it the way someone else would use a trip in the car to move what they needed to.

Certain purchases or events are often outside the realm of possibility for them.

The driver was very professional, not engaging him antagonistically, even as the invective grew stronger.

This was the kind of obnoxious, unpredictable person that makes your butt tighten up just by how he gets money out of his pocket.  Very concerned with making sure all of knew how angry he was.

So this led to a real shock when he started talking about how he kept the runways clear at a closed airforce base and how a certain captain used to combat climb off the tarmac.

The driver kept stopping the bus to invite him to leave, basically calling him out for his behavior.  Of course, the guy would back down (actually) without giving an inch (in his mind).  The only problem with this was it made me later and later to get to the H's to cover the baby patrol.  I got several phone calls directing my attention to this fact.  I wound up taking a cab to get to the H's in time for EH to leave for his class.

TA - the four-year-old - and I have always gotten along very well.  For various reasons he as arrived at language very late and is quite small for his age.  With that said he is incredibly communicative, both in movement and, increasingly so, verbally.

His 3 month old sister, PC, however, is another order of complexity.  I'd had her placed in my arms once before and listened as she went completely wild.  Unlike all her sibs she didn't take to me at all - at least, that once.

So now here she was in my arms again as her father left for his chi gong lesson and I could feel this little, little girl begin to gather herself to belch out an ear-splitting wail in my ear.

The suggested therapy for this was to strap her into a battery-powered rocker, complete with electric lullabies and close the door, letting her cry herself to sleep.

I did as suggested.  Or tried to.  I couldn't leave her there to cry and figured there had to be something to being there with the child while she dealt with the strangeness of a new face and smell entering her new-made world.

Thus engaged I started my lonely peregrination of the first floor of the house - living room around the table, hallway by the piano, dining room by the sideboard, playroom by the rocker, back to the living room.

Around and around, with PC wailing in my ear, calming down only long enough to suck in another deep breath.

Pause by the mirror to look at ourselves.  Living room around the table, hallway by the piano, dining room by the sideboard, playroom by the rocker, back to the living room.

And finally she quieted down - after a few false attempts.  MH came home with the girls to find my sitting in the living room with a three-month old baby asleep on my chest.  MH had time to fix a nice dinner for the other three kids.

So that was that.  

I am struck by the polarity of life - helplessness, arrogance, dependance, acceptance, so many facets to both the young and the old.  I find them in my own life.  I took these risks, abandoned my own sense of professionalism as a teacher to have more time to write.  I owe it to my ex-students, administrators and parents to use the time to create and share.

Somehow walking a baby to sleep, watching an old man wrestle with life, all lead me to try harder.