Morning Drive

We pile in the car. We are a tangle of backpacks, instruments, laptops, lunch bags, and breakfast. I balance a red plastic bowl in my lap with my favorite breakfast: mixed berry yogurt with homemade granola (Katie's recipe), and my cocktail of vitamins (vitamin D, vitamin B, and acai berry).

Margono drives the car through the morning traffic. We stop suddenly as a motorcycle cuts in front of us. I hold tight to my bowl and waterbottle as an Ibu crosses the road flapping her hand at us (Indonesia's signal to let someone pass). Margono swerves to miss the occasional chicken and cat.

And somehow this mayhem of our morning routine has all become quite normal.

Inside the car, we eat, we chat, and we sometimes read (though the sudden stops and starts often lead to carsickness if we're not paying attention). We look outside at the hanging laundry, the bird cages, the motorcycle repair shops whose cement floors are black with grease, the colorful vegetable carts, and the children in their clean, pressed uniforms on their way to school.

My favorite part of these morning rides are the unique conversations I have with the kids. This week, Madi and I shared a choice moment.

Madi: "Look Mom, there's a monkey!" (Pause) "On a chain" (said sadly). "With his own tree house!" (Happy again).
I crane my neck to spot the monkey. Sure enough, there he is on a tree branch with a chain around his ankle. 
Madi: "I want a pet monkey."
I'm not sure how to respond to this so I say nothing.
Madi continues: "But what I really want is a bengal tiger!"
Me (in my mother-voice): "Bengal tigers are dangerous."
Madi: "Not when they are young. When they're young they're like kittens."
Me: "So at what point would the tiger be too old for us to keep?"
Madi pauses, thoughtfully. Then with absolute seriousness she says, "I suppose we'd know the tiger is too old when it eats Charlotte."

It was a good thing Charlotte was not present to hear about her sacrificial position in our family.

While we sometimes use our car time to philosophise and catch-up, very often our conversations (as demonstrated above) lean toward the absurd.

Perhaps it's the exhaust and delusion-inducing nausea??