School

And so it begins. Maryn and Avery both have their first full day of school today and last night was the second of my two new classes at Wayne State. Here at YDB, we're taking in a new cadre of students starting Monday morning at 8 a.m.

It's fall and school is starting.

It's a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it's exciting that the girls are so grown up and that they're going to have all the great experiences of making new friends, loving their teachers, getting to go to the library/gym/lunch room, etc.

But, on the other hand, my tiny daughters are out there surrounded by people I don't know, susceptible to the influences of other children I have no control over, and out of my protective reach for most of their waking hours. It terrifies me. Like most parents, I think, I bring my issues to my children. I worry they'll be lonely or that they'll be persecuted by cruel children who don't know better. I worry they will feel awkward and isolated. I worry that people who see them, talk to them, teach them, learn with them, etc. won't realize what spectacular little people they are and won't treat them right.

My own schooling is also a double-edged sword. I really love being in a classroom with a smart, capable, prepared teacher and a group of bright, curious, generous fellow-students. Sitting in a room and talking about an idea or a book or a movie while leapfrogging off one another's comments, getting new perspectives, managing to say just the right thing exactly the way you mean to say it -- it's really one of the great pleasures of my life.

However, the workload is heavy. There's a lot of reading, all of it dense theoretical stuff with little in the way of humanity or concrete detail. I'll be spending a lot of my off moments at work scrambling to get through another few pages of Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" or "The Politics of Memory" by Barbara Cassin.

The other downside is that it's essentially two days of the week that I will just be completely absent from my family. We'll drive separately into work on Wednesday and Thursday mornings and then I won't return to our house until 9:30 that night, long after the girls in bed and Suzanne has lost all ability for coherent thought. (She endures long, demanding days. By about 8 p.m. she's done. We usually go into a mutual coma in front of reality TV -- Big Brother, Fat March, So You Think You Can Dance, America's Next Top Model.) Plus, the girls will be going to bed earlier in general to compensate for long days at school with no naps.

So after a relatively relaxed summer, things are accelerating in a hurry. We've already had some cool mornings, Michigan's storied cider mills are open for business, and we spotted the first red leaves of autumn over Labor Day weekend. The cool weather, the new school clothes, the sudden sense of urgency and purpose -- it's exhilarating but also sad.

(Suzanne buys cider and a"big bag of little donuts.")


(The girls and the first red leaves of autumn.)

Long evenings of just watching TV with nothing to worry about for tomorrow other than making it to work on time are done for. Days of shorts, short-sleeve t-shirts, and sandals are numbered. The absence of night-before-the-big-class-presentation anxiety is a thing of the past.

Sigh.

Still, sweltering hot days that make it hard to breathe or move will also be a thing of the past. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas are all coming up. Sitting under a blanket while it storms outside or while snow falls will be nice. Plus, most of the really good movies come out in fall and winter anyway and, really, what else matters?