When you’ve been watching your kids over many years, you start to notice patterns, like with some kids things get tricky just before the birthday as if developmental leaps are timed to sync up or how when big, growing and stretching events are taking place outside the home (school starting for example) there might be extra neediness or crankiness at home. September is both back-to-school month and two birthdays’ month in our house. Enough said.
With our many kids’ first days behind us (whew) I found myself caught up in transitions all my own, although completely connected to their new years’ commencements. I kept telling myself that I should watch out, the kid I was least worried about would throw me a curve ball and fall entirely apart and the one I was most worried about would surprise me by sailing. So far, that’s not the case: least worried, breezing in, most worried, rocky.
**
My return to our kids’ elementary school was harder for me than I anticipated. There were some really fantastic elements to it: I love Remy’s teacher and am over the moon for Remy’s sake (and mine; she’s someone I adore) and there are people I’ve barely glimpsed all summer when we were going in different directions—and it’s so completely lovely to reconnect in a daily manner.
The less pleasant aspects had to do with abandonment and frustration. Abandonment is too strong a word, really. Having just one kid at the school now—the second graduated in May—I’d completely forgotten how it felt two Septembers ago to return without certain of my peeps, the graduating (from the school) parents. My loneliness is helping me identify with my Remy, who’s experiencing the loss in school of his sixth grade dear-hearts, including his brother. I’m missing his brother’s presence on our walks to school, too, while–because life is like this—I’m enjoying that it’s so cozy to be solo with my nearly eight-year old each day for a few minutes. Frankly, I’m frustrated about lots of things at the school. I’m not alone in this yet there’s little willingness to speak up. The vibe there has lots of grumbling and crankiness.
Falling into a new school community that’s as warm and welcoming as the one we are familiar with isn’t feels both delightful and disappointing. All week, I’ve attempted to reach out to unfamiliar faces at the old school. It’s so simple. And it isn’t the norm in this school community (something I’ve been told by other friends more recently new there than me).
**
Four school communities are overwhelming, period. Sensory overload seems part and parcel of autumn: everything from the strange sensation of feeling cold, to new scents in the air, and to the new foods surrounding me, to the filled-up town (more foot traffic, all those scared first year of college students arriving at Herrell’s in swarms, increased automobile traffic).
At this point, my parenting peers span a lot of years (more than a generation, easy) and I love this and it’s a little more of the taffy pull sensation I’m experiencing in so many ways—thinking about toddler stuff and teenager stuff, thinking about lunches each morning and work simultaneously, thinking about parents and babies. The taffy pull seems to strain my emotional muscles a bit sometimes.
Here’s the thing: I love my high school (!) son chatting with me about everything from Buffy to the rundown of a day at school to SCOTUS and I love the treat of connecting with a friend from high school (as I was fortunate to do, when fates converged such that we could meet in Pittsfield because she was spending a few days at Kripalu and I’d headed west to officiate a wedding).
I love that the wedding I officiated last weekend was for two men in the middle of their lives and the one this weekend was for two twentysomething men. As a blogging writer, through the magic of the Interwebs, my ties are increasingly multigenerational. Life is best when it’s not monochromatic. A college friend sent on a blog post by another writer peer about the importance of noting three good things about your day each day. It’s something I’ve been doing with my kids for many years. I liked the reminder. In the midst of all this upheaval, it was important to affirm that even when change—or life—feels hard, there’s always so much to cherish and the practice of noting the good encourages the cherishing part to occur.
**
Three good things:
The Honeycrisp apple I ate yesterday crunched juicy happiness in my mouth.
As I read Sonya Huber’s forthcoming memoir Cover Me—A Health Insurance Memoir I’m reminded of how powerful the combination of being brave, honest and articulate really is.
One of the passages the young marrying couple had a friend read was so poignant and sweet at once and reminded me that all the time I spend with picture books (four kids, not all sharing the picture book years at the same time) is so very more than enough for me.
From the Velveteen Rabbit
On becoming real, Skin Horse: “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
