Living by the Fast Lane

picture sourced from morguefile.com

About a year ago, we moved to a brick house along a main thoroughfare. The house would meet our needs well, but the road concerned me. Indeed, traffic noise, exacerbated by the wail of emergency vehicles and the beep of snowplows, kept us awake for two whole weeks after we moved. 

About the time I no longer crawled out of bed feeling like I had cared for a colicky newborn all night, our much-loved cat decided she had enough of this noisy nonsense. Her eyes grew wild and wilder, and her ears laid back so far they nearly inverted. She lived under the hood of our van and could barely be coaxed out to eat. Whenever I left the premises, I had to open the van hood, remove the cat, and speed away before she leaped back in for protection. When she could handle the stress no longer, she cast a final wounded look in our direction, dodged our grasping hands, and disappeared into the field. Permanently. It was a sad day.

Sometimes we give up on getting our mail because we have to cross an autobahn to reach the mailbox. Olympian-like, we crouch at the edge of the road, one leg extended far behind us, one hand on the tarmac, poised for the sprint and calculating the cost. At Christmastime when it took two hands, two arms, and a chin to carry the mail back across the street, it was worth the dash. But now? Risking your life for geriatric bathtub advertisements is decidedly less compelling.

Sometimes my mom-friends talk about taking walks for fun or therapy or weight loss purposes. I am not naturally drawn towards walks in the first place. In the second place, my skirts being sucked into the traffic by speeding Tyson chicken trucks while horse and carriages storm up the berm behind me makes me feel disinclined to take Sunday afternoon strolls. We learned, though, that if we walk the edge of two neighboring yards and through the alfalfa behind our house, we can reach a quiet field lane. I’m not utilizing it enough to lose weight or anything, but sometimes creating distance from the road noise is a pleasant change. Call it therapy.

Our location helps offset the busy road. John only has six minutes to work and ten to church. We are half a mile from a discount grocery store and just as close to a superb Mexican restaurant. We live next door to a bookstore that sells gifts and games, books and Bibles, science experiments and school supplies. I walked across our yard one day to buy a calligraphy pen during art class. I sent a child to buy balloons for our yard sale sign. I can keep my prize boxes for homeschool and Sunday school nicely stocked. Speaking of stocks, John has been threatening to buy stocks in the bookstore.

Our location means friends can come to my house without going out of their way. On separate occasions, I have had coffee and flowers delivered by ladies who were passing by. Once, a friend sent me a text saying, “I’m waving at you.” I looked out my kitchen window and saw her standing on the porch of the bookstore. She smiled when she saw me and waved more enthusiastically. Out-of-state friends have dropped in after shopping next door. 

Mostly, receiving unexpected friends has been positive—unlike receiving the unexpected electrician who didn’t bother calling before he came in the early morning “because your landlord said you are always home.” I’m confident that the same electrician won’t repeat the same offense.

But I hope that my friends aren’t scared off by catching me unawares. On my son’s birthday, we spent our afternoon at the library, in a bakery, and playing games. We did not spend the afternoon cleaning, as is our usual Friday afternoon routine.

Suddenly, my daughter said, “Mom! Your cousin is here.”

I glanced out our window to see my cousin from Michigan and my former classmate from Indiana standing on our doorstep. The odds of being caught by them on a day like this were low. My hope lay in the hands of my children.

“Quick! You guys clean as fast as you can.”

Little dust clouds puffed up around their heels as they kicked into frantic action. There would be nothing I could do about the state of the kitchen, but no matter. I stalled my friends in the entryway, buying time for my children to transform a natural disaster zone into respectable living conditions. When I could hold off no longer, my guests and I meandered through the kitchen but instead of turning into the now-clean living room on the right, one of them, a schoolteacher, saw our schoolroom on the left. The room that hadn’t been touched.

“Oh, I want to see your schoolroom!” And they turned left.

I’m afraid that not even our brightly colored, 140-link paper chain trailing around the ceiling eclipsed the waist-deep river they waded through. Paper projects my four-year-old had given up on, books he had abandoned, a teacher’s desk buried beneath papers that needed a home.

Even while I was smiling and showing them the brown paper bag buffalo hides we painted earlier in the year, the jianzhi we cut on Chinese New Year, and the Wall of Fame where I post neatly written spelling words, creative artwork, and good tests scores, I was thinking, “Dear God, please don't let them be permanently scarred."

They never saw my living room. We stepped back into the entry way to talk about science fair ideas. Of mixing hydrogen peroxide and dish soap with a catalyst to make a gigantic bubble mess so big you can disappear behind it. Disappearing messes. I could get into the idea of that marriage.

But not disappearing friends. I sincerely hope they return.

Living along a busy road hasn’t been as bad as I thought it might be. We still roll our eyes over loud mufflers or the snow plows that sound like they are scraping off the top layer of asphalt. 

But if you see me striking across the field, heading away from the house, it isn’t because I’m leaving like the cat did. I might be creating distance from the road noise or simply spending time with a friend. 

I call it therapy.