Wednesday Mornings

On Wednesdays I drive Cyra to school. We pack her violin, her lunchbox and her twenty pound backpack into the car for her afternoon violin lessons. For some reason, which I cannot devise, our school district doesn’t allow instruments to travel on the bus. Weird, I know, but driving her to school once a week is a small price to pay for a year of lessons and nearly free use of a school violin.

And as a bonus, I get to see Scott as he drives across town.

Scott, without going into too much detail, works in peddle sales – it’s the best description. And so is often seen driving around town. On Wednesdays, he goes in a little later than usual because his first stop opens just a bit later. These few extra minutes in the morning translate into a sweet routine for me every Wednesday.

I usually glimpse him as I am heading home. Most of the time I am still in my pajamas with my hair pulled back in a frizzy, messy ponytail. I feel grungy and scuzzy and I can hear, in the back of my mind, my mother yelling at me for schlepping around. I’m thinking about the breakfast I haven’t had yet and the chores I need to accomplish, what job postings on Monster I’ll see that day, and what I’ll write about for the blog or the story I’m working on. I mentally run through my inventory of yarn scraps and wonder what I might do with them.

Sometimes I even pay attention to the morning radio programs or traffic.

But then I see Scott’s truck, bright blue trailer advertising his products. And I get a goofy little grin on my face and my stomach feels as though I’ve got an entire team of Olympic gymnasts back-flipping about. All the thoughts I had about the day: gone. If my morning was rough or hurried, it doesn’t bother me anymore.

I see him before he spots me but when he does he holds his hand up and gives me a little wave and he toots his horn as he drives by.

And it doesn’t matter, all of a sudden, that my face is unwashed and I haven’t shaved my legs because I know he loves me even when I’m at my worst.