I wake up with a phrase in my head, often. This morning it’s “Follow your angels.” I know who my angels are, friends and family, especially my two little boys.
Today is pajama day at Mr. T’s school. After our pancakes, we three pile into the car in our jammies. In the drop off line, I scrutinize the bumper stickers on the car in front of me. Grow Slow, Share, a lion, a sun salute in pictorial. I should be friends with this person, I think, glancing up for a better look at the car. Oh, it’s my dear neighbor, fervently waving through her back window. We step out of our vehicles. “You’re in your jammies too!” I exclaim, laughing as the wind whips my nipples stiff and suddenly aware of the assistant principal watching us. “Ask him if he slept in his suit,” I call to Mr. T as he runs to join the neighbor’s son.
She leads the way back to our street. I notice it is easy to follow someone when you’re paying attention, and easy to lose them when you lose focus.
I extract Baby J from his booster seat and deposit him on the curb. He points in the direction of our neighbor’s house. He is insistent, ignoring my pleas for a bath. It’s a pleasant morning, but the wind still penetrates my flimsy shirt, having its way with my nipples and I’m feeling a touch shy about walking down the street. “Can’t we go inside for just a minute, get your shoes on?” He toddles away in slipper socks. Follow your angels. Ok.
We visit with the neighbor, trade stories of our recent sobriety. Funny, we do a lot of things in tandem, without much reason why. Like have two kids by different fathers, each seven and a half years apart. She’s got a decade jump on me, and hers were both happy surprises, mine planned. I’m not sure what’s the difference. Maybe to make me notice there isn’t really any.
She wants a nap before work, but Baby J isn’t having any of this heading home business. He’s off in the other direction as I put on my peaceful face and shove down my ego, nipples pointing the way. We make it down to the busy main road and he takes us to the gas station. The clerk knows us well. I mumble something about the surprise nature of our walk and correct my attitude again. I have nothing to be ashamed of. Two granola bars and an organic juice, thank you. At least my tiny titties are pretty, anyway. Sheepish smirk, scan of the room, five men eyeing us. We cheer them on to their bread winning.
Baby J is still not done. We are half way home when he cops a squat on the low wall in front of a house under construction. Men walk in and out, calling greetings. Appreciating our cuteness. I do a few twirls, Baby J claps and sips the juice, no hurry. Now he gets up, and it’s back towards the gas station. This time, across a huge intersection, smiling at hundreds of cars, so many to witness the mama and baby in jammies, skipping towards nowhere in particular. We scale hills, traipse through leaf piles, climb a lovely wall that overlooks the highway. Baby J picks up a beer bottle before I can stop him and spills a few drops to my dismay. My thoughts turn to bums, I was homeless once. What if our home is burning down at this very moment, some electrical failure. The bank sent our house a happy 50th birthday card and a reminder to have basic safety checks performed. I have no man. I have no steady income. I must follow my angels. I must trust.
My angel smells like beer now. Something clicks in my mind. If my house were gone, if we arrived at our doorstep and there was no more door, I would be relieved. I would move my kids out to the country, to play in the creek like I did when I was a wee one. I carry Baby J home. His compaints only last a moment, then he rests his head on my chest. No one can see my nipples now.
