Our Transport 2

her name is Hildegard, after  Hildegard of Bingen

Our car is un-retired. Back on the road. No longer pushing up the daisies.

As much as we are reveling in the luxury, I look back on (yet another) summer of car-less-ness with much gratitude. 

We are all in better shape. 

Will and I spent a lot of time together, getting around on bike or foot. We talked to the kids. We talked to each other. When we went places as a family, each pulling a bike trailer overflowing with kids (oh, are there only three?), we had real, uninterrupted, grownup conversation! Not just the necessary husband/wife interchange about who left the fridge door open, but good stuff: environmentalism and the prolife movement (he talks, I listen), Waldorf pedagogy (I talk, he listens), our dream farm in the clouds (we both talk and talk). 

We felt the temperature change and "smelled" the seasons...the mud, the new leaves, the melting snow of early spring, the rich grassy smell of summer, and the dry, crickety smell of August.

toiling

As I began to slow down in my third-trimester tiredness, I stuck closer to home. I learned to love being where I am without relying on spontaneous travel to "escape" the duties of daily life.

We saved all kinds of money because we couldn't just run out and buy whatever we needed. We usually found we could do without, anyway. Or make it ourselves. Summer gas-prices didn't ruffle our feathers.

early spring romp

The lessons in simplicity of life abounded! I am so grateful for this time.

And now that I'm big as a whale and tired as an old coon hound, I'm grateful to sink into the car's seat, again!

I'm sure I wouldn't be quite this grateful without the summer of cycling.