First and Last

 

My childhood schooling was marked by two memorable ritual events. The first, and most joyous, was the last day of school. I watched that clock slowly (oh, so slowly) ticking toward three o’clock and then jumped up and ran out the door and leaped off the steps straight into the welcoming arms of summer. 

I shrieked with delight at the freedom of whole days to myself wandering through the park— climbing trees, skipping stones in the lake, playing tag or hide-and-seek or stickball with my friends. I eagerly anticipated hot, lazy days punctuated by the heavenly bells of the Good Humor ice-cream truck, lying in the hammock reading, hanging out on my front steps at night watching the fireflies, I did go back to school, but now it was all summer-camp games outdoors—tetherball, nock-hockey, ping-pong, an occasional pie-eating contest (which I won!), baseball in the field across the street. And then the Jersey shore with my parents— long days on the beach, riding the waves of the Atlantic, occasionally the boardwalk at night with its rides and ski-ball and general feeling of pure enchantment. 

 

And then came—after Labor Day, the way it still should be!— was the first day of school. Not the same kind of exuberant anticipation, but some pleasure in returning to the larger community of kids and the structure of schedule and the accidental pleasure of some occasional engaged learning—new books, new skills, new ideas. Getting that new lunchbox or school supplies or new shirt and a certain eagerness to show how the summer had transformed me— look at my new, enlarged self! There was the unknown of the new teacher (might this be one that actually will like me?), the power of ascending toward the top of the pecking order (hey, lowly 3^rd graders, I’m in 4^th grade now!), the anticipation of the classes I liked (gym and sometimes, writing time). Alongside all of that, the seasonal cycle of summer’s heat shifting to Autumn’s innumerable gifts— the cool, crisp air, the changing leaves, the slowly darkening days. 

 

Who could have predicted that I would spend my lifetime following the same cycle, only now as a teacher? The last day of school became a ritual with my teacher wife and I. Go out to dinner at Tadich Grill or Il Fornia or Fog City Diner, all near the Embarcadero’s water’s edge and feel that same kind of release of work finished (though there were three more days of teacher meetings wrap-up and sometimes report cards leaked over for another week or so), of looking ahead to whatever summer plans awaited. Often travel to new and exciting places on every continent and almost always, the annual retreat to the Lake Michigan paradise (where 50 years later, we still are as I write). 

 

And that same feeling returning to school that it’s time to dig in and begin the work we love, put our shoulder to the wheel to get things rolling and feel the rhythm emerge. The fun of meeting our staff colleagues and sharing our summer adventures and often beginning with some ritual fun activity that James, Sofia and I would lead. The hardest part was setting the school calendar, feeling exhausted as we had to project into each detail of the year ahead, as if we had already lived it. But then left alone in our rooms to straighten and clean and prepare the new ideas. And when the kids finally came, we were so happy to see them and we let them know with our elaborate opening ceremony involving Bulgarian bagpipes, Balinese flags and gongs, a tunnel of singing teachers, a water ritual and song after song. Such a joyous way to begin. 

 

Now six years retired from that cycle of “last day/ first day of school” but still thinking about it as my still-teaching colleagues and daughter and people I’ve just trained in my Orff courses re-enter the sacred ground of school. How I wish the same joyful re-entry! How terribly disappointed I am when I hear what their first day back is actually like! 

 

To be continued…