Remy took a day home from his very tiring (and-not-the-most-fun-he’s-ever-had) camp yesterday. He played with his pal, Max, for the morning.
I worked.
I did a little more work after I picked Saskia up from her preschool. But then, I stopped working. Remy and I took a bike ride once Saskia was back from Sunnyside and on her way to Arella’s (with Kate, our housemate-slash-babysitter).
While riding I thought about how I abhor white plastic fences and how stupid I feel offended by them (it’s your house, not mine, after all and why should I care?). Why do certain things bother me so much (that are none of my business, really)? No one put up a white plastic fence to offend me after all, I’m pretty certain.
I feel this way about women taking the husband’s name, too (sorry, like, so many people I know). It’s as if feminism doesn’t matter or something (but seriously, there are a zillion ways to support feminist values—and I know this, I really, truly do, so I should get over this feeling so personally offensive).
At one point, Remy got bored riding along. I wasn’t sure we were going to make it past East Street in Hadley, except that I told him about going through a tunnel ahead… Well, he wanted to do that. That wasn’t boring.
A few minutes later we went under Route 9 and he called out to create echoes and it was as cool a thing as he’d ever done pretty much in his entire life and we discussed which experience was cooler: going under the road there or over it on the new bridge on the section of bike path toward Easthampton (he said under, I said over).
We had kind of imagined making it all the way to Amherst (Goberry). We made it to Maple Street, where there is soft ice cream. He had had enough riding in one direction.
We ate our cones. He loved the geese. I loved the views. We chatted with a nice woman eating her ice cream after riding from Amherst.
On the way back, we yelled while riding through tunnels. We waved at Paul Shoul going the other direction (my last call before we embarked upon our bike ride). We marveled at riding over the Connecticut River (better than going over or under the road, we decided).
I thought about how glad I was to have helped raise the necessary monies to ensure 120 acres of farmland remain farmland in our town, because glimpsing all that remarkable Hadley farmland reminded me of what a treasure farms are. I was reminded, too, of what a magical experience it is to live in a place where the community—seemingly almost routinely—gathers together to do amazing things, like preserve farmland or donate a giant DVD collection to the local library or help out neighbors after a series of arsons or a tornado. All of which was so much better than thinking about white plastic fences.
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At home, Saskia and Arella were hanging out after having done some playing, some sprinkler time and some snacking. Saskia is a total monkey these days. Like the twosome at my mother-in-law’s last week traipsing over Saskia’s grandfather’s sculptures (human figures on the ground), I’m pretty sure her grandpa—had he known her—would have quite enjoyed the image of her upside down under the angel.
