Who Am I?

 As I write this, I'm sitting in my minivan, which is parked behind my house. I have a minivan because I am the mother of three children who are ten, five, and two years old. The two year old is napping in his car seat. I know he will wake up if I try to move him, so here I sit, typing with my laptop squeezed between me and the steering wheel and listening to NPR. 

I love NPR. I love the unflappable anchors and the reporters from near and far. I love the world music and smooth jazz that plays during transitions and the silly game shows on Saturday mornings. I love the names of the people who work for NPR: Mandalit Del Barco, David Folkenflik, Renee Montagne, Ira Glass, Ira Flatow, and, my very favorite, Ofeibea Quist-Arcton. I realize that NPR is probably on every list of "Stuff Millennials Like" along with pour-over coffee and avocado toast, and I'm OK with my unoriginality.

From my seat in the minivan, I can see Highway 44. I live in the city, and I love it. There's so much beauty and brokenness in St. Louis--I want to fix the brokenness so everyone can see the beauty. This is a city for poets. Even though T.S. Eliot left St. Louis for London, he still felt its pull as he wrote, "the river / Is a strong brown god--sullen, untamed and intractable." And Sara Teasdale kept coming home from "far-off places" to see her "western city / Dream by her river."

I think I would like to be a poet, but, more immediately, I would really like a nap. To take a break from being the one who plans and gets and waits and worries and is responsible for. To indulge in the unbothered respite of a two year old in a car seat on a warm summer day.