Mothering Outside the Lines

The Bus Stop Moms

From my morning window
I would watch
as they huddled casually,
tossed light conversation
back and forth,

an occasional
eye towards their kids
who played and laughed
together, finding sticks,
tracing shapes and letters
in the dirt.

After the big
yellow bus swallowed
their chattering children,
the moms would often stay
and talk a bit
in the easy way
women do
when they have things-in-common,

like an intact marriage,
and Pilates class,
and typically developing children.

I’d watch them wave to each other
as they’d part,
good-bye, see you later,
the bus stop moms turning
each towards her own
well manicured lawn,
highlighted hair shining in the sun.

I’d guess at market lists,
soccer schedules,
Girl Scouts tomorrow,
Johnny needs new sneakers,
such busy mommy thoughts
dancing in their heads.

From behind a fraying lace curtain
I’d imagine being one of them.
How carefree they must feel,
sending their kids off
without concern
for their obsessions,
compulsions, anxiety,
lack of toileting skills,
inability to communicate.

Without gnawing worry
that today might be the day
she bites the teacher again,
(who tells her to wait for the bathroom),

or rips at her clothes at recess,
(because it’s just too loud),
or has a meltdown during snack time,
(because the juice was the wrong color,
and nobody noticed signs
of the impending storm).

Almost two decades later,
the bus stop moms
are all grown up,
and so am I.

We still live in parallel universes,
they in their emptying nests, kids
off to college,
getting engaged,
traveling the world,

and I rarely compare
my apple to their oranges
these days,
having found the appetite
for what I have been served,

which is another way of saying
we can learn to love
what we’ve been given.

I’m busy slow dancing
a day, a week at a time,
having found my own
special mom circles,

and a different carefree
that doesn’t demand
grades, degrees, weddings,

having found a partner who
loves being her dad.

Different house,
the lawn still unkempt,
the curtain perpetually
in need of replacement,

these days I only peek out
to see the bunnies
so at home
in our untended landscape,
as am I,
as am I.

 

-Melinda Coppola