My first year out of college I was a Kindergarten teaching assistant at an all-girls’ school in San Francisco (which also happened to be my alma mater). It was a job I landed somewhat by default, the result of being an alumna, and of having chased love and family over a budding career on the NYC magazine publishing scene. (There was no magazine publishing scene in San Francisco in the early 2000s; there was a tech scene. This lover of print had no West Coast prospects.)
That said, in retrospect it was a beautiful year of self-discovery, in large part because of the amount of free time my job afforded me, and in equally large part because of the incredible women and men I worked with: some young and starting out, some seasoned; some born teachers, some place-holding, like me; but all committed to the time and to the place and to the kids in our care. In fact, I met a generous handful of my since-lifelong closest friends as a result of that assistant teaching job, and my non-teaching career in education was born in those halls. So: time well spent.
But I digress, because the actual intro to this essay is a child in that Kindergarten class who lived, at that time, (and possibly, still now, because I see her occasionally) in the high-rise apartment building where I have been raising my children for the past seven years.
OH! How I pitied that child! What a sad, concrete, tragic, un-green, deprived, urban life she was leading! In a city known for its neighborhoods — its hamlets — she was consigned, by her parents’ blindness, to live in a downtown high-rise! WHO DOES THAT??
Ah, youth. Ah, judgement. Ah, life.
Because as it turns out, I totally do that. And my husband — who was raised about ten miles away in what I fondly describe as The Town Disney Might Have Built When He Was Trying to Build the Perfect Town — is committing the same injustice.
Obviously, we are terrible people. We are people that other people simply do not get.
Except.
LittleMan and my husband got involved with Cub Scouts this year. It all happened very fast and (to me) seemed very spur-of-the-moment-we-met-some-parents-at-a-cocktail-party-who-were-doing-it-and-my-husband-got-nostalgic. But whatever, we are in it now, and that’s saying something because Cub Scouts (and Boy Scouts, and Eagle Scouts) is a serious commitment. My husband and LittleMan leave the concrete jungle for the Northern California wilds with some regularity these days, and Babygirl and I are left to wander these streets as proper city ladies do.
If you follow me on Instagram (or if you read this blog with any regularity) you know this high-rise is within blocks of the Bay Bridge and the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market. On Cub Scout weekends, this is where my daughter begin our Saturdays, with a tall, steaming hot water (me) and a vanilla scone (her), a short shopping list, and a keen eye for inspiration.
Farmers Market shopping with with Babygirl is PURE DELIGHT. Despite the origins of this blog, I long ago gave up on LittleMan’s appetite for locally-grown produce and have settled for baby carrots and avocado chunks on a near-nightly basis. But Babygirl! Oh, that child is my foodie; she has reintroduced me to the delights of new tastes: she gamely pops the persimmon slices in her mouth and begs for handfuls of cherry tomatoes and trays of sushi. I’ll be honest: I didn’t think children like this really existed; I thought they were unicorns, fictions manufactured on Instagram to make the rest of us feel envious…but then I gave birth to one.
Over several weekends in October Babygirl and I roamed the Farmer’s Market stalls at dawn (the only time you can really roam, because, crowds of hipsters) then came back to the apartment and made Green Goddess Dressing, and sliced up apples to take to gymnastics. We walked Sutter Street home from her gymnastics studio and stopped for sushi rolls, which we paused to eat on the plaza at the Bank of America building. We strolled Justin Herman Plaza and watched the ice rink being built; we took BART to Rockridge for a backyard Halloween chili feast; we shopped Union Square, and took a stroller walk to Pacific Heights playgrounds with my sister and my nieces. We were exhausted and well-fed in the evenings, curling up on the couch to watch Tom & Jerry and have pasta with tomatoes (her) and Chardonnay (me).
The clocks shifted and the rains came (they came! at last!) and the camping trips are over for the winter. We are a family of four again, briefly: right before Thanksgiving, my husband will take Babygirl for the annual, alternating Kids’ Trip to Visit Their Uncle & Aunt in Oregon and I will have LittleMan on the home front. We will go to the Ferry Building, but not for the produce: for the bookstore. We will eschew Justin Herman Plaza for the AutoDesk Gallery. On Saturday, after the Embarcadero Lighting, we will walk with friends for pizzas under the lights and begin to let the holidays wash over us.
Somewhere children are riding bikes on cul-de-sacs, or forming snowballs, or pumping on swing sets. Somewhere children are lacing up skates, or jumping in pools, or playing football under the lights. Somewhere children are crossing streets to the park, holding hands with a grown-up as taxi cabs turn right and left, looking up at lights all around them, like so many stars or snowflakes. Somewhere children are peering out of high-rise windows at the world below, while in a kitchen down the hall, their mamas make Green Goddess Dressing and mac and cheese.
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