BACK TO SCHOOL

BACK TO SCHOOL

I’m on Face Book too often, for sure.  But today it felt right.  It was the first day back at school, and so many of my friends are posting photographs of their children going off to school.  Often with photos of said children from years back.  Even my most political friends are doing that.  It’s a pleasant break from posts on the idiocies of our President and the tragedies of the world.

I must admit that I miss the first day back at school ritual.  Last year was the first fall in at least 25 years in which we didn’t have to arrange our morning schedules around getting one or both of our daughters off to day care or school.  But last fall, we were in the south of France on sabbatical when school started, so it didn’t hit me as much.  This year it has.

To be clear, I don’t miss the grind of getting an obstreperous, recalcitrant child off to school when they don’t want to!  But I do miss the communities that form at school, and I do miss checking my calendar to make sure I can get to Natasha’s volleyball game or Talia’s soccer game.  I miss running into parents that I saw weekly at games, at school meetings or just dropping off or picking up our daughters.

There are no grandchildren on the horizon, so I will have to be content with smiling at the parents with their children on my morning walks.  And with my memories of those mornings.

This is an old poem that was written about one of those morning a decade and a half ago:

GETTING UP

The person who had insomnia bad

Shuffles to the room of the person

Who got up four times to ask for water,

While the person who snores

Stumbles past the door of the person

Who can’t stop talking on the phone

All night long.

                   The person with dust mite

Allergies and the sore back lifts up

The person with pajama fuzzies

And fuzzy hair, and holds her upright,

A kind of morning prayer of the unresponsive flesh,

While the person with the surgery

Still holding her flesh with her tired hand

Wanders to the basement to pick out

Fresh clothes for the person

Who puts sand in each shoe each day, and to

Drop the same pair of jeans

Into the drying machine for the person

Who is terminally bored, and perpetually

Can’t stop talking to her friends

All day long,

                    while the person with eczema

Demands her TV show with aardvarks

From the person who is packing her lunch

And making her toast, and trying to listen

To the news from Iraq, while the person

Arising from the basement makes coffee

And gathers the book bag and the gloves and the boots

And rubs this morning’s skin cream

Into the person whose chief delight

In life is candy (and then gum and then candy

And then gum and then can I have some

Candy please), while the person

Who hides her candy and wants

A boyfriend is sleeping peacefully

In her bed with her cell phone, CD

Player, hoop earrings, two teddy bears

And a note from a friend who might

Have got pregnant,

                          while the person

Who immigrated 17 years ago,

Picks up the paper with the still strange

Language and reads, and the person

With the temper can’t find the car keys

And asks the person with her cup of coffee

To please put them in the place we always

Keep them, and yells at the person

With her pajamas still on to eat her breakfast,

And goes back to the kitchen to look

At the weather, and decides to eat

A banana with peanut butter, while

The person who has a test in algebra

Is dreaming of a day at the beach with friends.

                             Then,

The person with the sore back and

The person with the surgery take

The person with no clothes on still

And forcibly put on socks and shirt

And sweater and pants, and jacket

And boots and mittens, and “Yes, you

Can put your horsey in your book bag”

And “No you cannot take your tapping 

Shoes to school,” and “Please drink your juice” and

“Come on, let’s get to the car”, and the person

With tears but no remorse finds one more toy to touch,

One crayon or picture, or one thing

Of the person SHE KNOWS NOT TO TOUCH

BUT SHE DOES IT ANYWAY

BECAUSE YOU LET HER GET AWAY WITH IT,

And the three persons in one

Are out the door, to the garage,

To the car, to school, to work

To worries and to whomever it may concern,

While the person with the ponytail

And the braces and the bright eyes finally

Gets up and wonders why

It is always so quiet around here in the morning.

Apparently, this poem is so old, I can’t even format it correctly after copying it here!

Be a loving parent.  Be beauty.  Be justice.

Patrick