The Wheels on the Bus

“Oh the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round…”

This the opening song in my first music class with granddaughter Zadie, guest student at The San Francisco School. How much did it mean to me to see her sing it with the 3-year olds (with my 33-year old daughter also in the class, who also once sang it with me when she was 3 in the same place)? Well, to quote another song; “How deep is the ocean, how high is the sky?” There is no language that can capture the sensation of beginning a life all over again and boarding that bus with such joy and delight.

My daughter and granddaughter freshly dropped off at the airport to return to Portland, it has been a glorious four days. And a constant theme for me doing the things with Zadie that I once did with her Mom a lifetime ago. To see Zadie sleeping in the bed where her Mom slept, to have her sit next to me for a moment in my morning meditation in the half-lotus posture, to make her the old favorite meals, to watch Fantasia on video. We went on the steam train in Tilden Park, the Caroussel in Children’s Playground by my house, slid down the concrete long slide on cardboard (me once, Zadie 18 times), read the old books on the couch at night, improvised music on the piano and xylophone, kicked a small soccer ball down the hall. It’s all happening again.

And if the Fates be kind, will continue on to the first movie at the Castro Theater, the old Hitchcock films on video, the long nights of Little House on the Prairie read-a louds, the camping trips, the swims in Lake Michigan and canoe rides on the back lake and so on and so on. The doors of the bus will open and shut, the wipers on the bus will go swish-swish-swish and off we’ll go down the road where I have traveled before, but with a new little being at my side, a different face in the mirror and a different spring in my step. How it goes on.