I grew up the son of a teacher. My mother taught first grade. Every August in my home town in northern Minnesota, as the days began to shorten and the evenings cooled, I remember the feeling of a fleeting sweetness that was summer in a northern climate. We'd be playing our outside games with friends with an almost desperate intensity, as if the hectic pace of our play might slow the time. After my birthday on the sixth of the month (and my mom's the day before) the days seemed to slide quickly into the next school year. Mom felt it keenly. Too soon she would be back in the classroom teaching another batch of first-graders how to read and the other basic skills they needed to learn.
Now she's retired and I'm the teacher and when I pass the threshold of August I like to talk to her about how it felt back when she had to get ready for another year and how she's glad she doesn't have to do that any longer. For me, the excitement is still there, in the week just before classes begin again. That's always when it hits me, when the joy I feel as a teacher flames high again after the low-key burn of summer. Soon I'll be back in the classroom, back doing what I love. Oh, the summer's been good: I've been reading, writing, painting and drawing, traveling, working out, goofing off. Still, break's nearly over and soon enough I'll be glad of it--in another week or so. But not yet . . . not yet . . .
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