Journal of a Sabbatical

May 4, 1999

a cold rain and one headlight

Reading: Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott 

Thinking it was still spring, I left the house without a jacket this morning. No umbrella either since it broke in the last big storm and I haven't replaced it 'cause we've had a very dry spring. When I got out of the car in downtown Andover the drizzle turned to downpour. Cold downpour.

I walked across the street to Butler's Pantry for my Tuesday morning coffee, getting soaked in the process. An 8x10 sign in the window announces they're closed because of a fire and sorry for the inconvenience. I contemplate therapy without coffee and decide I can't do it. I'll get less wet if I get the coffee at Earth Food Store than if I go to Starbucks and then backtrack to my therapist's office conveniently located next to the Earth Food Store, so I plod through the alley getting my shoes soaked in the puddles. The paper cup of organic Peruvian blend threatens to decompose in my hand... and the lid won't tear straight... my therapist's office is cold... she turns the heat on... and so it goes.

I struggled through therapy, trying to explain the huge load of feelings stirred up by watching Andrea receive her First Communion.

The rain tapered off later in the afternoon so I figured Andrea's soccer game was still on. I had a boss once who coached a boys' soccer team and he made fun of the Little League coaches who canceled baseball games when the rain got too heavy. He was very proud of his team playing in the heaviest rains. I once asked him if he'd ever tried to control a wet baseball, which of course he hadn't. I also pointed out that a soccer ball was unlikely to kill you if someone lost control, whereas a baseball might - not that any kid in Little League threw that hard but it could happen. He still thought baseball players were wimps. He never quite grasped that baseball is a game of control and skill. But I digress. I knew the game would be on so as soon as I finished typing Eileen's article on poop for the newsletter, I took off for Groton.

This is a four on four soccer league. I'd never seen a four on four game before and I had trouble following it. There's no goalie and there's some rule that results in an automatic goal when someone touches the ball inside the circle. The only trouble is the circle is impossible to see from the sidelines, so I was never sure when they scored. Sometimes the kids themselves didn't realize they'd scored a goal.

The grass was wet. Two Canada geese flew overhead honking like a whole flock. It was hard to believe it was just a pair. I kept hearing a killdeer somewhere but since their voices are so loud it could have been across the street at the dump or something. Either that or the referee's whistle sounds like a killdeer.

Back at home, I'd just started supper when the phone rang:

Lizzy: "AJ, you're a padiddle."

AJ: "Hunh? A padiddle is a car with one headlight."

Lizzy: "Yup. Wasn't that you behind us on Cow Pond Road?"

Light dawns slowly on AJ's marble head.

AJ: "I guess so. Is one of my headlights out?"

Lizzy: "Do you want to talk to Daddy?"

(AJ and Kevin recapitulate the headlight conversation ...)

AJ to Kevin: "Which side is out?"

Kevin: "The outside."

And so on. I guess I'd better go out and check. I really hope it's not the passenger side. You have to take out the battery to change the passenger side headlight. Talk about a user-hostile design. The last time I tried to change it, I ended up walking into the Honda Barn holding the headlight in my bruised and bloodied hand. Before I said anything, the service manager said: "'94 Accord passenger side, right?"