Getting Home

My new job is just downtown, which means I can easily bike down Market Street to the office. It's good: I spare the air and get a little exercise while I'm at it.

After work, I head to David's school where he and I catch the bus. We work as a team, hoisting the bike onto the rack at the front of the bus, then finding our way to a window seat. The rear seats in the new hybrid buses are the best because they are higher and you can see more.

David sits on my lap. As we watch the world go by, we talk of cabbages and kings: whom he sat next to at lunch, the new Spanish words he's learned, the stories behind each of the drawings he´s brought with him, what he ate for afternoon snack. We point out our favorite shops, cafes, and bookstores as the bus lumbers along. Twice we've seen Uncle Steve walking home.

When the bus gets to our stop, we climb down and run around front to reclaim the bike. David pushes the bike rack back into place, we wave goodbye to the driver, and and sometimes she beeps back. Then David hops onto the saddle and I walk alongside, steering and pushing the bike past Pauline's Pizza, up the the short hill to our front door.

That's how I come home most days, and although it seems like nothing special, it's still hard for me to take it for granted. Maybe it's because I'm an adoptive parent who knows David came to us by a kind of grace. Or maybe because raising a kid has not always been an option for gay men like me. Or maybe it's that my own life's twists and turns brought me into parenting a little later than most folks and, well, you treasure those things you have to wait for.

Can't say why for sure, but coming home like this with David each day feels miraculous.