Poignant changes. If ever there was a theme to the day, this would be it.
And one change that's not so poignant: it is cold today! Really cold! Like, "sweatshirt isn't enough" cold!
Let me unscramble this day for you, just to keep everything straight:
First of all, there is the early wake up. It's still dark-ish outside. It doesn't help that it's a cloudy day, with a constant threat of rain. As I make my way to the car I tell myself -- well it's a good thing the kids aren't standing at the bus stop waiting for the school bus today. Half of them would be down with colds by the end of the week. (Yes, I know you don't get colds from cold weather, but you do weaken your immune response with less sunshine in your life.)
By 7:45, I am at Snowdrop's home. It's her first day of Kindergarten! True, it's all online, but it begins at 8 and it is a full schedule of instruction and group time and individual learning and music and who knows what else. (It is the little girl's fifth "first day" in her life and I've always been there with my camera. I'm not going to change that now!)
I do a two second dash inside to take a picture of Snowdrop at her new "school" desk.
Sparrow is crushed to learn that this is not merely a new set up for their play!
Meanwhile, in Chicago, Primrose, too, is starting her new school year. (It's her third "first day.") Hers is in person. Also on a cold, wet day.
Oh, how schools define us! The teachers we grow to love, others -- not so much. The stumbling blocks, the repetitions, the routines, the recesses and lunch times, the excellence, the boredom, the friendships, the bullies, the quiet corners in the library where you can always find a good book to read. My memories of childhood are nearly all of school. Was there even life outside the classroom?
Back at home now, feeding the cats, waiting for Ed to wake up so that we can have breakfast.
I'm sure you'll have guessed -- the morning meal is in the kitchen.
The rest of the morning is spent on getting the kitties in the writer's shed ready for a transfer to an adoptive home. A futile effort. The person who wrote to us changes her mind at the last minute. Ah well -- we are learning on how to get them ready for this eventual journey, even if it doesn't happen on this cold and blustery day.
And speaking of getting ready -- we thought we'd try out the furnace today. It's good to check out its functioning before a real Arctic blast comes our way. And it worked! For a few minutes. And then it stopped working. And so the rest of the day for Ed is spent on identifying the problem (condensate sensor malfunction), then searching high and low, calling every possible source, trying to find the small needed part to make it work properly again.
What if you can't find it? -- I ask.
Let's not go there... -- his reply.
I lose myself in my computer for a while. I look for photos of kids on FaceBook -- it's always such a beautiful thing to see their "first day" smiles. And I come across a post from a friend (Paul, who does not read Ocean to my knowledge) who is asking for some positivity -- "post a picture you took of the great big beautiful outdoors! No explanation, just post it!"
Since I have never done one of these memes, I hesitate. But it does make me wonder -- if you were to pick a picture that you loved from your own collection of outdoor shots, what would you pick? Without doing a search or giving it much thought, I immediately (and poignantly) recall one of mine that I took some five years back. Maybe it came to me because of the similarity in the weather?
No explanation, no apology, just a smile at a scene where rain and cold air did not detract from the beauty of a day.
And one change that's not so poignant: it is cold today! Really cold! Like, "sweatshirt isn't enough" cold!
Let me unscramble this day for you, just to keep everything straight:
First of all, there is the early wake up. It's still dark-ish outside. It doesn't help that it's a cloudy day, with a constant threat of rain. As I make my way to the car I tell myself -- well it's a good thing the kids aren't standing at the bus stop waiting for the school bus today. Half of them would be down with colds by the end of the week. (Yes, I know you don't get colds from cold weather, but you do weaken your immune response with less sunshine in your life.)
By 7:45, I am at Snowdrop's home. It's her first day of Kindergarten! True, it's all online, but it begins at 8 and it is a full schedule of instruction and group time and individual learning and music and who knows what else. (It is the little girl's fifth "first day" in her life and I've always been there with my camera. I'm not going to change that now!)
I do a two second dash inside to take a picture of Snowdrop at her new "school" desk.
Sparrow is crushed to learn that this is not merely a new set up for their play!
Meanwhile, in Chicago, Primrose, too, is starting her new school year. (It's her third "first day.") Hers is in person. Also on a cold, wet day.
Oh, how schools define us! The teachers we grow to love, others -- not so much. The stumbling blocks, the repetitions, the routines, the recesses and lunch times, the excellence, the boredom, the friendships, the bullies, the quiet corners in the library where you can always find a good book to read. My memories of childhood are nearly all of school. Was there even life outside the classroom?
Back at home now, feeding the cats, waiting for Ed to wake up so that we can have breakfast.
I'm sure you'll have guessed -- the morning meal is in the kitchen.
The rest of the morning is spent on getting the kitties in the writer's shed ready for a transfer to an adoptive home. A futile effort. The person who wrote to us changes her mind at the last minute. Ah well -- we are learning on how to get them ready for this eventual journey, even if it doesn't happen on this cold and blustery day.
And speaking of getting ready -- we thought we'd try out the furnace today. It's good to check out its functioning before a real Arctic blast comes our way. And it worked! For a few minutes. And then it stopped working. And so the rest of the day for Ed is spent on identifying the problem (condensate sensor malfunction), then searching high and low, calling every possible source, trying to find the small needed part to make it work properly again.
What if you can't find it? -- I ask.
Let's not go there... -- his reply.
I lose myself in my computer for a while. I look for photos of kids on FaceBook -- it's always such a beautiful thing to see their "first day" smiles. And I come across a post from a friend (Paul, who does not read Ocean to my knowledge) who is asking for some positivity -- "post a picture you took of the great big beautiful outdoors! No explanation, just post it!"
Since I have never done one of these memes, I hesitate. But it does make me wonder -- if you were to pick a picture that you loved from your own collection of outdoor shots, what would you pick? Without doing a search or giving it much thought, I immediately (and poignantly) recall one of mine that I took some five years back. Maybe it came to me because of the similarity in the weather?
No explanation, no apology, just a smile at a scene where rain and cold air did not detract from the beauty of a day.
