Back to School

The kids have reentered their native habitat, their school, where they exist in their own world and do their own things and have their own languages and code names and habits that I know nothing about. It’s not for lack of trying! Everyday they come home and I am prepared with a hug and a snack and several sizes of crowbars and I get convoluted stories about how someone else’s backpack’s zipper was stuck or was broken but actually not really—or nothing at all.

Each year I send them off with a little tin of pencils, a mix of nice pencils and scavenged ones and Taiwanese ones and one or two lucky ones if I can manage it. This year I gave Naomi this tin a customer gave us, along with one of its pencils. I found this “Ontario Turkey” one on the ground in the library, which was fitting for Caleb in more than one way. Punctuation saves lives, Naomi! You gotta start using it at some point. A pink science pencil from a favourite pen pal, say no to drugs, a couple from a box we picked up in Taiwan.

All fresh and sharpened and long and pristine here in September, and what will the year hold for them? Who knows! I need to strategically position myself downwind at all times so they can’t get a whiff of my constant anxiety.

Here’s to another year of magic and friendship and creativity and growth. Maybe a bit of learning in there, too. Why not dream big?