Never mind that I haven't been in a classroom for many, many years. Never mind that I haven't listened to a roll call or puttered in finger paint or written a spelling test or opened a report card for the better part of a lifetime.
Feels like yesterday.
At this time of year, at least, when the streets become thick with backto-schoolers - most with tans and fresh haircuts and brand-new backpacks and shoes - I am transported back to the desk again.
I can smell the room: the chalk, the textbooks, the binders, the glue. I can hear the crackling of the PA system, and the voice of the school secretary, telling us there would be a notice to take home, and an assembly the next day, and a fire drill after that.
I can see exactly what would be in my zippered pencil case: a Pink Pearl eraser, three or four new HB pencils, a sharpener, some crayons, a neverbefore-used pair of scissors. It would fit nicely inside my desk, alongside my ruler, my arithmetic book and my speller.
Placed there, as well, would be a snack for recess - a little box of raisins, perhaps, some carrots or crackers, and juice - and a half dozen exercise books, some lined, some plain, all waiting for my numbers, my pictures, my words.
At this time of year, every year, I take my place in school again. No matter how hot the day, I would have traded in the sandals for the saddle shoes, and the bathing suit for a skirt and blouse. Kick the can would not be uppermost in mind - even though I would have spent the better part of two months playing it - but other things would be.
Things both scary and delicious.
Like every September, this would mark the grand beginning. Like every kid in every school, I would want all things to stay the same, but be thrilled to see them change. The classroom. The teacher. The schoolmates.
The lessons.
Just yesterday, the street was a different place than it had been a week ago. Back then, it had been more or less deserted. There was no march at 8:30 a.m., no parade of six-yearolds holding their mothers' hands, no early-morning skateboarders or knots of girls in giddy conversation.
They were there again today. I was about to begin my work day and paused for a moment to watch.
How odd, I thought. I wasn't going with them, but in the strangest of ways, I was.
