(Note: a few mornings, Maya has walked herself to school, which she’s particularly tickled to do. My baby is getting big…)
Over the past week or two, we’ve noticed that our walk is very reminiscent of “Groundhog Day.”
As we step out of the building, the church bells are chiming 7:45am. On the sidewalk not far from the steps to our building, we pass a woman walking a fluffy brown dog down the middle of the sidewalk (always the middle of the sidewalk). We reach the crosswalk, where the gentleman who operates the flooring store is always out sweeping the sidewalk. We pause at the crosswalk for the woman in the pink windbreaker on the white scooter to speed by from the neighborhood on the other side of the street. After crossing the main street, we skirt the delivery truck making the just-before-opening delivery to the grocery store (it’s usually a Mila milk truck). On the little piazza in front of the grocery store, we are passed by a woman and child on a bike before crossing the little alley and moving onto the sidewalk along Via San Martino. At this point, we are usually greeted by the man who runs the vegetable market on the corner as he heads in to open his shop (with a posted opening time of 7:30am). Several meters further on, we pass an older lady in a fur coat walking briskly with her handbag (she used to seem surly, but we’ve taken to greeting her and smiling, and she’s taken to responding). We are next passed by a family on bicycles (two parents, each on a bike with a kid and backpack dangling off the back of the bike). About midway down San Martino, a banker (who works at the bank in the ground floor of our apartment building) in a suit passes along the sidewalk on the other side of the street. Various children and their parents join us on the sidewalk en route to school. One is the family that has a child in Cora’s class, a child in Maya’s original third grade class, two more elementary school children, and a newborn baby. Just as we reach the corner where Sanzio is located, we are usually passed by our friends Arianna, Federico, and their mom Maria, all on their bikes. We join other friends outside the front of the school, where Maya runs around with the other children for a bit before the school doors open around 7:55 and the kids stampede inside.
(Note: stampede is the right word. Last week I watched the staff member open the doors from inside. Just before she disappeared from sight in a sea of boisterous, mostly running and shoving fourth and fifth graders, I noticed her eyes get big and her mouth form the words “piano, piano…”)
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