Getting Used To It

Last night, I put on a dress, did my hair and make-up, and went out.

Alone.

G stayed behind and put the girls to bed. As I opened the front door and crossed the threshold, I felt as if I were stepping out of the hectic mommy life into a carefree life. As I walked to the bus stop, I savored not having my little girl strapped to my body and holding hands with my big girl or wrangling with a stroller while making sure A keeps her hand on the stroller as she walks along. I savored not having different thoughts running frantically through my mind of ten thousand things I had on my to-do list. I left all that at the threshold.

The weather is very lovely now. I am thankful that it is June and the temperatures are still in the 70s. The breezes are refreshing and I do not need to turn on the AC unit yet. I was perfectly comfortable while waiting for the bus.

I got on a bus and I spent the ride sending text messages with a dear friend in the States. Normally, I would be hanging onto the girls as the bus lurches and stops in the chaotic traffic.

At the third stop, I got off and I walked along a tramway lined with shops, window shopping a bit on the way. I turned left on a cobblestone street and stepped inside an art studio. I'd gotten dressed for a gallery opening.

The artist, an American, had done a collection of work over two years, painting different parts of this city. Her style was to take pictures of interesting features of different buildings and paint a composite of those photographs in one painting. Each painting represented an area of the city. I liked her style but found the color scheme much too dark for my taste. I wasn't planning to purchase a painting and the somber colors cinched it for me. I talked with the charming artist and complimented her technique and said nothing of her choices of colors. All the other attendees were unfamiliar Americans, sipping on refreshment. There was a guitarist and singer providing background music.

I talked with the studio owner and his wife. She led me to the back where she was holding a painting that G bought from another opening. We both walked up the cobblestone street and stopped by a framing shop, across from a beautiful, old Orthodox church. I'd been in there once during Mass and the church was completely empty. It was sad.

We discussed the frames, I selected one, and the worker said it would be ready in an hour.

I continued to talk with my friend as we headed back to the studio, enjoying the evening breezes coming off the water. She went inside to continue her hostess duties. I hung back and found messages on my phone from a mother of a young baby. We commiserated over bad naps, exhaustion, frustration over lack of time and productivity. I didn't really want to talk to the American strangers inside the studio.

I looked up from my phone. The man who framed my painting had brought the painting over in less than an hour. I paid him and found my friend and bid her goodbye.

As I waited for a bus, I marveled at how fairly empty the sidewalks and streets were for a Friday night. Possibly the protests have something to do with that. The first bus that stops at my bus stop came along. It was packed to the brim. I would be able to step just inside the door and not move an inch further. I let it pass.

I took the next bus which wasn't as packed but it filled up along the way. I squeezed out at my stop with my painting, its glass and frame intact.

The sun had already set but the sky was still light when I walked along the newly paved and widened sidewalk to my home. I suddenly realized that I was finally used to the city. I was actually enjoying it. I didn't mind the press of the crowd on the bus and hanging on for dear life while the bus careened around corners. I was really okay with the urban life, as long as I can get a break from it periodically. I was glad that I was out alone, not to have something else distracting me, and to muse over my adjustment to the city.

Maybe this city isn't so bad after all.

We have secured a place to live while we come back to the States for 6 months next year. It is cute little white house with a gigantic yard in North Carolina. I look forward to the open spaces, the big yard, the roads less traveled. Yet, I'm okay with this city.

I'm content in the here and the now.