Years ago, and well into my seventh month of pregnancy in New York City, it occurred to me one day that, as I would be unable to run from a fast predator, I was lucky not to run into an urban panther. These weekly blogs will consider women's lives from the perspective of one who is now older.
Driving today, I decided to take the back roads. Unlike my younger self, I no longer enjoy driving on the highway where people are blinded by speed. I have become too aware of the hurtling masses of metal and plastic careening from lane to lane like a physics experiment gone amok. At least on small roads there are fewer cars, so one is less likely to loom up behind me, eager to fill the exact space I am occupying. Sometimes I wonder if my car and I are invisible.
Today I encountered no one, had the streets to myself, and could travel slowly enough that if a cat or a child suddenly ran across the street, I could readily stop and turn aside death’s glance. Looking at the houses, I see the arbor vitae planted too close to the foundations, the trees of life clipped into gray-green triangles or boxes, like a how-to-draw exercise taken literally.
What are these banners people are hanging from their porches? Flags declaring the seasons in too-bright colors, as if calendars had suddenly gone extinct and people no longer knew the moon phase or the constellations of the winter sky. I have trouble deciphering this flag language, except for the obvious: green shamrocks are easy, but what is that -- a pot of pansies? Is that the vernal equinox? The day seed catalogs arrive? A celebration of flowering plants?
I’ve lost patience with it. There is so much information coming at me, vying for attention, needing to be sorted and stored, that I want it to be clear. Except for jigsaws or crossword puzzles, I no longer find purposefully puzzling data intriguing, only annoying.
I saw a young couple walking from a house to the car parked in the driveway. It has become more difficult for me to determine age; perhaps I am no longer so interested. I remember how age had been so important to me as a child -- the two years between me and the next older cousin gave me anti-status, made me the baby.
Now age is becoming nearly meaningless, except as a shorthand for the stage of bodily functioning one could reasonably expect: thirty-five meant you were in mid-stride, and the stride was confident; forty-seven meant you certainly had experienced the common eye change, presbyopia -- so odd, as if your eyes only wanted to focus inward. I have more carefully been observing fifty, sixty, seventy -- trying to extrapolate the effects of gravity or loss of estrogen from a walk, tilt of a head, shoes worn.
The woman was in her late twenties or early thirties, holding a child, certainly no older than two, on her hip. They walked the man to the car and kissed him goodbye. He backed out of the drive, waved to them from the street. They kept waving as he drove away -- the wave that said we love you, travel safely, we look forward to your return.
And I remembered carrying my own children on my hip, spending my days with their clear, sweet voices and clear, sweet eyes. I taught them, introduced them to the world, and watched as they built their fine selves using pieces I provided.
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