(Chauffer? I was thinking that looked awfully strange. Sorry, apparently Coldfusion has now robbed me of my spelling abilities! How come none o’ y’all caught it?)

I live with ghosts. I haven’t even begun to process the last couple years but I get along okay, for the most part. Oddly enough, it’s not those who are now on the dark side of the moon that haunt me the most although they are certainly doing their best and I am happy to connect with them! It’s ghost versions of myself that get me the most. I used to be a mom with kids. The realization that the kids are no longer completely mine is what most often grabs me, picks me up, spins me around, and drops me in the dust. Like old Mr. Toad when the motorcar runs him over.

I did a lot of chauffering chauffeuring over the years. Picking kids up. Dropping kids off. It is crazy navigating the gauntlet of traffic and traffic lights that congest the Planet Ann Arbor. I have always loved to drive but sometimes I would think, “why can’t so-and-so’s parent pick them up this time.”

As the kids got into middle and early high school, I had a minivan (the beauty-ful old Island Teal POC ;-)) and I was frequently called upon to drive downtown to pick up or drop off. I would get to the agreed upon destination and hit the flashers and hope whoever was behind me wouldn’t hit me!

Mouse is home for the winter break and she likes to knit and read and occasionally use her computer at various internet cafes around town. She could drive down there, and she sometimes does, or she could take the bus or whatever. But that can all be a big pain and she’s been asking me for rides back and forth. And, yaknow what? I’m happy to oblige! It kind of gives me a reason for living. But when I’m driving down there, I remember all those days when my kids were young and I would pick them up and take them home. And then we were all safe and sound and our world was pretty small.

I have to say that it is scary these days. I am now picking up or dropping off on Main Street or South U in a Honda Civic, not a big old minivan. Inevitably, some trenormous SUV will pull up fast behind me. It is almost always driven by a perfectly-coifed woman with a cell phone plastered to her ear. Is she gonna stop? Or not?

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 10th, 2006 at 8:30 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.