The Comfort of Rituals
WHEN WE MOVED from the city to the country, the boys were, I think, six and three. On the third night in the new house—the first house they’d ever lived in—my wife and I were tucking them in and the older one started to cry. I asked him what was wrong. “I liked when we used to walk to the bagel store across the street in our pajamas,” he garbled through his tears. He was right. Every Saturday morning, we would wake up and shuffle across First Avenue to Ess-a-Bagel and order a big, warm, puffy breakfast. A city ritual. Now the view out our kitchen window was a red barn and a field. We told him that we would do new fun things that would become regular things. And we have done…
