Making things outside while you wait

Channeling my inner Calvin & Hobbes while waiting to pick up my daughter at school.

When the students came out, they absolutely loved this. I had a small crowd of kids around me wanting to add more snowmen.

Being outside is so nice. However, sometimes it’s tempting to stay in my car where it’s comfy and warm. Being out among so many people sometimes makes me nervous.

I like being social once I’m already in the middle of it. It’s the anticipation of being social that’s hard. So sometimes I have the urge to stay in the car. Or I can imagine some parents might be in a similar situation, but instead they are on work call which is easier inside a car instead of outside with kids running all over. Thus, there are some good reasons to stay in the car.

Still, the outside world is really nice. I don’t want to walled up inside a car.

There are people who love their cars. And that’s cool. That’s their vibe. Cars can be fun. However, I am personally not a car person at all. I often feel like American culture is a car-loving culture. Where the car becomes the default place to be. Part of me thinks that’s really the issue. The other explanations—work, introversion, convenience—might just be masking how dominant cars are in suburban life.

It’s the same logic as the drive-thru instead of going inside the restaurant. Stay in the car. I get that too. Time is limited. Kids are buckled in. It’s easier. I understand all of it.

But there’s something about entering an environment that isn’t your car. Going inside a restaurant. Standing outside a school.

When I wait, I don’t stand with the main group of parents. I’m off to the side. Introvert-style. I make myself not look at my phone. Instead, I look at leaves. Clouds. I play with the snow.

I love that kids naturally come up when I’m making a snowman. It’s sort of magical that kids want to enter this space of creation and wonder. Lately some adults have remarked how they enjoy the tiny snowmen.

Although, sometimes I do get a little wacky.

One day the snow was too crystalline to make snowmen, so I picked up chunks of snow and wedged them into the low branches of a tree. I didn’t climb it. The branches were right there. I wedged six chunks in different spots.

Is that strange? Probably. Would someone think I have a weird way of seeing the world? Maybe. But whatever.

What if we all lived in the world willing to make things just because we enjoy making them?

I hope that my actions help others (kids and adults) to see the world as a place of wonder and possibility. To see snow chunks in a tree and think it’s cool. To imagine the chunks as nests made by snowbirds. Or clouds caught in the branches.