The sigh of summer has taken a pause, and our mouths have turned now to yawning. Bed times crept back an hour, our alarm clocks have been resuscitated, and we have, at last, a new school year full of preparation, anticipation, and exhaustion. What I find myself with at the end of the day is a child passed out in her bed by 8:30, and an empty lunch box staring me in the face. How to fill it?
This is what we do now. We fill things. The school bag, the lunch box, wallets, folders, water bottles, coolers, thermoses, dinner plates, drinking glasses, our own stomachs. In an instant, we leapt from the ease of an August afternoon and all its flexibility and rule-breaking, to The Agenda. Our task as parents: Remembering.
Remembering homework, permission slips, emergency contact cards; sun block, shoelaces, hats-jackets-scarves; soccer games, spelling tests, science projects, fall holiday fund raisers; our largest, strongest muscle: our memory.
Over the last few months, we forgot how strong that muscle is. We gave it a rest in June and July, iced it and recorded its vitals in August. We never did our pre-season training. Instead, we let Labor Day massage us even more. Now it is time for the scrimmage; next, the long drive. We must be careful not to succumb to regret, nor judge ourselves by what we forget. It’s all one big practice match.
Motherhood. Food. Love. Health. Heartache. That shaky pendulum of ambivalence.
"This is what we do now. We fill things."
ReplyDeleteI love this.