Back to School? Not Me!

August 25, 2014 – Back to School?  Not Me!

For teachers in Fairfax County, summer break is officially over.  They reported back today for a week of teacher workdays.  They have my sympathy.  I know quite well what I’d be doing if I hadn’t retired.  I would have gotten up to the sound of an early alarm and driven off just as dawn was breaking.  I’d feel excited about seeing my old friends, but at the same time, I’d be trying to calm the flutters of anxiety that always accompanied the start of a new school year.  I’d already be preparing a mental list of all the things I needed to do – attend endless meetings, fill out forms, memorize the new bell schedule, set up Blackboard files, check class lists, write syllabi, haul books, and so many other details that I’d have to remind myself periodically to stop and breathe, slowly, and breathe again. 

So now that I’m “retired,” I always savor my freedom on this day that teachers relinquish theirs.  Instead of getting up at an absurdly early hour, I got up a little past seven a.m., had a leisurely breakfast, read the news paper, and took a walk in the woods.  The air was quite cool.  In fact, it was so surprisingly cool and refreshing that it inspired me to write a poem.  This is dedicated to all of my teacher friends, past and present, but especially to those who went back to work today.

The unexpected cool of an August morning

Not quite half past seven

On the verge of shivering

As I bound out of the house

And enter the woods

Thick and overgrown in its late summer glory

Even the storm water basin is a field of wildflowers

The warning sign “Water Rises Rapidly” elicits a gentle laugh

The incessant buzz of crickets and their friends rises around me

In pulsating waves of sound

White seashells of fungus sprout from fallen decaying tree trunks

Alongside the path

Dainty bells of yellow adorn tangled vines

And crowns of fuschia spring from the tallest weeds

I pause at the hollow rat-a-tat of a woodpecker

And wait for its repetition before I continue down the path

A distant owl bids a tardy farewell to the night

As the sun climbs up and up and up through the trees

Its light tickling and teasing the forest into a new day