The Ordinary Times

Uphill/Downhill

I have to catch two different buses to work. My transfer is downtown at a stop surrounded by very tall buildings. If I’m on time, it’s still dark out. Sometimes I’m late, and the sun starts to rise and light the tops of them.

One morning I was admiring this effect and noticed a strange light on the top of a mid-sized building. Green lights, perhaps six wide and eight tall, arranged in a diagonal array atop a pole, facing southeast. It can’t be for helicopters because the building is adjacent to taller buildings, so what is it? I can’t help but look at it now; every morning I check to see if it’s lit.

Yesterday the lights were red. I can’t really explain the way this made me feel, but superstition worked its way into my thoughts.

I work at a therapeutic nursery for children – aged birth to four. Normally I just drive the bus, but yesterday I filled in for the teacher’s assistant in the two-year-old classroom. The kids are wild and hilarious. A little boy poured all of his cup of milk into his bowl of cereal, ate most of the cereal and then asked for more milk. After pouring the milk back into the cup for him, he fished the last of the Kix out of the cup, poured the milk into the bowl and asked for more milk. A little girl – who had, upon arriving in the classroom, immediately went around the room and threw everything on the floor – went ahead and threw his bowl of milk on the floor, too, ending his experiment in gravity and the nature of liquids.

Spills can be cleaned and attention can be re-directed. Some things are more difficult.

This girl’s need to make chaos of the room was unappreciated by another girl, “D,” who needed stability. The first girl, “C,” got out the little xylophone and brought it over to me, sat down, and proceeded to make a racket. D immediately came after her, eyes alight with fire, growling fiercely from the back of her throat. She put her hands around C’s throat, and when separated, continued to thrash and kick at her, never averting that vicious stare, limbs shaking with rage. Two or three more times this happened – grabbing at other kids’ throats or collars, eyes wide, that unreal growl, and the shaking, as if there were more rage in her little body than it could handle.

It’s easy to over-simplify the reason behind such behavior with platitudes gleaned from made-for-TV specials, but there are so many factors at play. It may have been her family that gave her these ideas, but it may not have. I dropped her off at home and dad seemed a friendly guy, with the house relatively clean and warm smells of something being fried wafting out from inside – and a huge television on. Stress plays a large part in a lot of these families’ problems. Everything from physical health to the ability to deal with children’s needs is impaired by stress, and living in any form of poverty is stressful.

That said, the son of one of my family’s close friends – who is now in law school in New York – was a biter when he was three. A fierce biter.

Today, the light was green again, but before the bus came, it started to blink. Every. Three. Seconds.

I don’t know what it means.