Turn, turn

Tomorrow is the first day of school; the first day for us teachers, anyway, and that means today is the end – the last official day of summer. I know I have no right to complain, since I’m coming off more than eight weeks of vacation, but I'm lucky because my wife is very forgiving about listening to me moan – a little – about summer’s demise. I normally greet the new school year with a mixture of excitement and sadness; I’m excited to meet the new class, to be teaching, to be back into the beautifully exhausting give-and-take of trying to teach a score of second graders what I know they need to know; and I’m sad about leaving behind the freedom, the relaxation, and the ease of summer. This year, the arrival of school is especially bittersweet. It’s selfish to say, but I regret that this is the last summer of Linda and me - the last summer that’s just ours. We sat on the deck today, watching the hummingbirds come and go from the feeder, hummingbirds that will soon be gone, and I knew that our summers will be different from here on out. That’s the bitter part, but the sweet part is what they’ll become. As a teacher, I get to spend summer days with my child, and I plan on making sure those days are packed with adventures big and small.


I took one, final summer hike with a friend today. The goldenrods and asters were in bloom, chickadees were flocking up, wild black cherries littered the trail at our feet – even though the temperature said summer, all the signs of the change in season were scattered about the fields and the woods.

74 days until baby.

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