Last Day of Elementary Blues
Summer is here, middle school is next, and I’ll miss the tenderness of these last six years.
Lana and I live on a corner and across the street running perpendicular to our house is a steep grassy hill, terraced out of dairy pastures sometime in the mid-20th century to accommodate a public elementary school, which is where we commuted almost every open day of the PPS calendar for the last six years.
When I was small I used to wonder about living across the street from school and now I know it’s awesome. We walked every day because to drive would’ve been a hassle. Some years, like this one, Lana could look out her classroom window and down into her backyard. Despite the three-minute stroll, we were still late too often to be reasonable.
We each made friends, so pick-up and drop-off were respites for me, also, especially in the early years when my fellow parents were often my only daily adult interaction. I loved crossing paths with neighbors, all of us trudging uphill in dark rain or bright sun or usually overcast skies to the tidy little K-5 we all shared.
One flashback: my delight before kindergarten, both at Lana being taught by the legendary Ms. Nelson, and at how literary Lana’s classmates sounded, names like Barrans, Boleyn, Hammer, Litt, Majekobaje, Maudlin, Ratner, and Quiggle. I watched those kindergartners grow. I befriended their parents. We witnessed soccer fields dug, playgrounds built, murals painted. This year, the cracked bog of a parking lot finally got paved. Rieke looks finer than when we began.
After I dropped Lana off, sometimes I’d go for a walk in the hills or run errands or head home to work, and I’d return at three o’clock (or 2:30 for the past few months) to gather and chat and walk with Lana back down the grassy hill, through the corridor of maples where crows battled hawks, and across the bus-lined street to home.
My favorite commute friend is Phil, a bartender and fellow writer who has a daughter older than Lana and a son younger, and another son just beginning at Rieke. Phil has years to go on that commute, and today I envy him because I will miss the walk, the neighbors, the little folks learning. I guess all this activity is still across the street, though not quite for us anymore. Lana is ready for the next level. For me, six years wasn’t enough.
Hi Jordan,
This brought back so many memories, and a few tears. The memories of such sweet friends made, not just for Eryn and Mike, but for me also. Greens, Nordbyes, Linkers, Hicks, Osbourne-Kochs, Clarks, Howard’s. All people that, still many years later, mean so much to us. Thank you so much for the reminder of what a large part each stage plays in our lives, and the blessing each person is along the way. (That includes you!)
Love, Linda
Love this.