Susan Senator

I’ve had no blog since stupid Blogger bailed on everyone.  So Ned and Max transferred this thing with its 1300+ entries over the course of several days and I’ve become choked with posts that could go nowhere.  Here is the first one to come bubbling up:

Ned and I took a walk with Nat into the Village this afternoon, more to see how he seemed than to get anything.  But Starbux is always a lure for me, especially when I have a long day ahead (I’m traveling for the book tour.  I had cut some of it short to come back home and be with Natty.  Now I’m headed back to Connecticut and then onto New Jersey.).  So we headed there; it’s only like a half-mile from home.

Nat eagerly accepted the invitation to go, which is a good sign.  Lately, while he’s been home suffering from the shingles, he has not been himself.  He has been answering a very elongated “ye-es” to most questions, and hardcore “NO,” to others.  There has been very little that has elicited the psyched-Natty “YES!” complete with the jump-up and the scramble for shoes.  I miss that.

But Nat loped ahead of us in his usual style and I felt very good walking next to Ned in the humid air.  It was so steamy and sunny, in fact, that for the first time you could smell the blossoms of the trees.  There will be a waft of sugary air and then I turn immediately to identify the source, which is kind of impossible when every tree around me is fluffy white or pink.  Ah, such a good problem.

We got down the hill and crossed over by the Post Office.  The blocks are pretty contiguous at this point, but there is one small alley-like street that actually has a crosswalk and light.  Nat was ten feet ahead of us, as usual.  I watched him get to the curb and I saw him pull himself back and wait, even though the walk light was on.  Then I noticed a car that had barreled right up to the crosswalk.  Nat had noticed it too, and so he had not crossed, even the light was on.

I think this means that Nat now understands the gray areas of walking in the streets:  that you have to watch for cars and you cannot simply rely on drivers to obey the lights.  It happened.  It really did.  Now the goal of letting him walk alone in the neighborhood is visible, just beyond another block.  More independence has bloomed inside that incredible brain of his.  I breathed in that knowledge, enjoying it like a fresh breeze of apple blossom.