West Portal mayhem

Found myself criss-crossing the West Portal neighborhood this afternoon, with the baby sleeping in the French-designed stroller (his first outing in it--I think I said I wouldn't mention strollers again but okay, one more time: it's a wonderful stroller and he slept beautifully in it). The neighborhood was going a little beserk because of the closure of the Muni line between Castro and West Portal, due to a train derailment early this morning. Police officers and Muni officials were everywhere, the extra buses shuttling Muni passengers back and forth were causing traffic snarls left and right, and the hordes of people exiting the buses doubled the level of noise on the main thoroughfare, West Portal Avenue. Not the most relaxing walk. Even on a good day, without Muni problems, this particular neighborhood strikes me as more than a bit noisy; but today the noise was bad enough to feel oppressive.

Be that as it may: West Portal does manage to convey a certain amount of charm in spite of the noise; it feels like a small town, somehow, with all of its knick-knacky shops and unambitious restaurants, with its cozy-looking houses, with its slightly dilapidated movie theater. Is it a "lost" part of the city? Not really. People there look too purposeful, too focused in on their environment, for this neighborhood to be designated as "lost" in the sense that I'm using that word in this blog.

Nevertheless: during today's stroll, I passed a large parked sports utility vehicle with a family inside it, or at least, a mother and her two sons; she had her head back against the headrest and appeared to be sleeping, while her two young boys, perhaps somewhere between four and seven years of age, sat in booster seats in the back, just staring out the window. I felt bad for all of them--exhausted mother, bored little kids in back. But I do admit, I mostly felt for the mother at that moment. I think I've even done what she was doing, in that same neighborhood.

Perhaps the universal symbol of parenthood is a certain glazed-over, fatigued, just-barely-holding-it-together look that I've only seen on the faces of mothers and fathers trying to keep up with their energetic little ones.