It was a good week. Weird. But good.
Bill and I arrived home from Pennsylvania last Saturday night Without The Children. Yes, we left them there On Purpose to enjoy a few more days with their Pennsylvania grandparents before being whisked away to Long Island by their New York grandparents for most of this past week.
It feels Very Strange here without them.
But it’s not such a strange thing to do. Beth’s Olivia is with her grandparents in Michigan this week. My sisters and I used to spend the entire month of July– every year– on Long Island with our grandparents. It’s an important thing for children to have time alone with their grandparents. It’s an important thing for grandparents to have time alone with their grandchildren. And it’s an important thing for parents to have Time Alone.
We did this last year, but it was later in August. Bill’s parents had the children for a week in western Pennsylvania while Bill worked and I spent a week of in-service days at Trinity School before school actually started.
But this week has felt Really Weird, because it isn’t yet time for teacher work days at Trinity School. And so while Bill has gone to work every day, I have been here Alone.
I’ve been busy. Very. I’m still working on tenth grade humanities curriculum, which I’ll be teaching for the first time, and I’m refining the ninth grade humanities curriculum, which I’ll be teaching for the second time, Just Better. And it isn’t like I don’t have reading to do for my Master’s thesis, which I’ll be writing this semester. And it isn’t as though we don’t have a jungle growing in our front (and back, and sides) yard. And it isn’t as though there isn’t (still) work to be done in our basement (and we spent The Entire Day working on that yesterday).
There’s plenty to do.
But I’ve missed my children– their laughter, their conversation, their interruptions, their messes, their hugs, their sleepy-eyed, early morning selves. And I’ve sat working and working at the kitchen table, books and papers spread out all around me, in this very room where we homeschooled together for All Those Years, and I’ve thought about them. Sometimes– I freely admit it– I have wished to have those days all over again, when they were So Very Little. Oh My, Yes.
From my seat here at the table, I have a perfect view of our bird feeder. I have kept it well-stocked, and I have chased the too-bold squirrels away. And I have enjoyed how many of the birds look like young ones: they have, for the most part, their adult coloring now. But here and there, around their necks, or on their backs, are the light and curled feathers of the Very Young Bird. When I see this, I know they are new at this flying thing, at this independence.
This, too, makes me think of my children.
