Friday, May 23, 2014

Another year


Our girl was happy to see us. She'd walked out of her last final just a couple of hours before and wasn't yet used to having so much free time on her hands and free space in her brain. Most of her friends had already left campus, as their exams had ended earlier, but our girl had a final on the very last day. As she had to be out of the dorms by 2 pm the following day, she cheerfully put her parents to work helping her pack up year two.


Outside her dorm, that last trickle of students lined up for buses back to New York City. Our girl lived on West Campus, in one of the stately old gothic buildings, with a sweeping view of the Slope where all the fairs and concerts and fun activities took place. Her room was the size of a postage stamp, but she didn't mind. She loved having her own space.


Our girl and three friends rented a storage locker together to store their things for the summer. It works out to just $30 for each of them. We drove two of them from the dorm to the storage place to deposit their things. The storage place turned out to be in the next town, and on the way back, we developed car trouble that would require the services of a car repair shop to replace the power steering fluid pump for a tidy sum. All's well that ends well. I'm just glad my husband is such a skilled driver.


Our car fixed, we headed home, the rest of our daughter's things filling the back of the car. She put her head on the armchair pillow she dubbed her "husband pillow" and went to sleep for the duration of the four and a half hour drive back to the city. I cannot tell you how sweet it is to have both my children under my roof again, even for such a short period.


Okay, back to work. Freelancing is a double edged cookie. You're either swamped with work or worrying about when the next assignment will appear. Fortunately for me, the former is the case at the moment, but it leaves me not much time to meander. Bear with me if I am a little silent. I will come up for air very soon.


3 comments: