Back to School
After a long, hot summer with no air conditioning, but lots of fun, I am very excited for the cooler weather that has descended upon Michigan today. It’s my first day back to school, subbing in a local high school. That’s what I do when I need to be guaranteed income. It is not who i am, it is what I do. I basically babysit teenagers. As you can imagine, there are a lot of negatives that come with this gig, but I am going to choose to focus on the positives today.
The beginning of the school year has always felt exciting to me, full of possibilities. I think that’s part of the reason that fall is my favorite season. It’s a new start, a blank slate, a chance to begin again with a renewed energy. September, as I just recently realized is the first of the -ber months, the months known for coziness, warm drinks and family celebrations. I love the crisp mornings that demand a cup of tea, the addition of a scarf or some cute boots; the school supplies stuffing the store aisles; the fall festivals at cider mills, football games and ofcourse the changing of the leaves. The chill in the air is a wake up after the lazy lounging of the summer. To me, it says, get your planner out, set some goals, and get focused. While September may not mean the same thing to everyone, for those of us who’s lives revolve around school schedules, it signals “a new year”.
As I start the 2025-2026 year I have many thoughts. First, looking back: Did I make good use of my time off? To answer this I would first need to define what “good use” means to me. If my “manager” in charge of productivity, responded, the answer would most likely be no, as I’m positive that I did not check off several things on my summer to-do list. “The Prioritizer” would say that some of my choices didn’t make sense , and “Miss Discipline” would point out all the times I hit snooze and laid around scrolling. While these things might be true, when my core self looks back she sees a summer full of laid back mornings trying to make sense of our changing world and days full of grace amisdst the humidity, hiding in her bedroom with the window unit cranking, reading or down in her studio working in her planner. She hears the laughter of the many friend groups that they gathered with, around the pool or at delicious restaurants, at the baseball field or around the scrapbooking table. She sees the mornings snuggled beside her husband reading and those at the restaurant working on their Italian homework together. She pictures them enjoying their short trip to Pennsylvania and all the fun they fit in. She smiles at the memory of babysitting a sweet little one and watching her grow and learn. She remembers the absolute joy and gratitude on the faces of her daughter and future son in law at the bridal shower she planned and orchestrated. She thinks….”good use” ? Hell yeah.
Looking forward, I wonder, “what now?” This question comes with a multiple choice answer set, I think as I look at my calendar. We have just last night gone back to folk dancing, at least for the next 3 months; next week we will begin our second session of Italian language classes, I have several things to finish leading up to my daughter’s wedding at the beginning of October in Chicago, (including one from the summer to-do list, Miss Discipline points out). I also have my step-daughter’s shower and wedding coming up and my yearly scrapbooking event in Wisconsin. Then there’s a short trip to Florida, all before the middle of November. It’s an especially busy and exciting fall this year, and I wonder if there is time for the stuff I want to get to, the stuff that I want to put out into the world. I am excited and I doen’t want to lose momentum, but when the answer to “what now?” is “all of the above”, what can I do?
