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Essay: September

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We’re into the last week of September now. It’s a month that, even years after you left school, can still feel like a melancholy transition in life.

For Lake Effect essayist Lane Pierce, it’s the first September she’s experienced with a child going to school. 

There’s a settling that happens each autumn, when the wind blows up from the earth and the first, dried leaves are crunched to the ground. For many, the cooler air signifies an end – An end to hot sun and summer days, outdoor explorations and grilled corn on the cob. Everything slows, blows and with each additional layer we wrap around ourselves, we warm to a style of life that comes from within.

But September is different, leaving me hanging between an end and a beginning. Outdoors I sweat in the sun, looking back, summer just one pace behind. The heat makes me feel ambivalent during the day, the cool air at night pushing me too quickly into what’s ahead.

September brings me back to my first days at school, with warm, sunned air blowing across notebooks. I would sit by open windows and long for just a little more time. A little more time for freedom, for the outdoors, for the safety of lunches at my kitchen counter. Particularly as a small child, the beginning of the school year was hard for me. I remember standing on our front steps with new shoes, fighting a lump in my throat as my mom talked me through my day – and my first steps away - reminding me that “mommy always comes to pick you up.” On the hard mornings, she would stick those words to my shirt with a handwritten sticker when I clutched her hand and asked her to stay.

And now this September, I feel the little hand in mine and sense my son’s ambivalence as he stands on our steps with squeaky sneakers and says, “But I don’t want to go to preschool.” When I kneel down and tell him I understand, it’s the truth.

“I used to feel that way too,” I say, “But whenever I got to school, I always remembered how much fun it was.” He fiddles with a small, red chip from a board game. “Let’s put this chip in your pocket today,” I say, “so whenever you feel it, you’ll remember that mommy comes to pick you up. We can even go to the playground after school.” That’s enough for him to jump down the steps into the sun.

When we get to school, we stand together in the warm hallway, waiting for the door to open. When it’s time to go inside, I kneel down and say the goodbye we’ve practiced, “See ya’ later alligator.” He hesitates just one extra moment, then glances up at me with a shy smile and marches into the classroom, so composed. I take a deep breath and exchange a proud smile with the other parents in the hall. I walk outside into the hot, humid air.

It’s a good first day, “sunny” according to his mood sheet. We run out to the playground after pick up, stepping back into summer, if only for an afternoon. He is much more interested in the bugs than my questions about his morning, so I wait. As we explore the slides and trees we collect leaves on the ground, the first to be kissed in reds and oranges and yellows. Our hair sticks to our foreheads in the hot sun.

When I tuck him into bed later that night, he asks me to sit for a while then says, “Let’s talk about my school for a minute.”

“Tell me all about it,” I reply.

“I fell a little bit, but I didn’t cry. I put my hand in a stamp then onto paper for a handprint. Some kids cried because they wanted mommy. I was a little sad, too. We had so many animal crackers. I drank water out of a big cup like this…Mrs. C washed my hand with a wipe. I like to play with the dinosaurs.”

I listen at full attention as he recounts all the meaningful moments in his day. I kiss him goodnight, telling him how proud I am that he went to his very first day of school. Then I step over and open his window, letting in the cool, September air.

Lake Effect essayist Lane Pierce is a Listen To Your Mother essayist and 2014 Milwaukee cast member. She writes, wrangles and raises a toddler with her husband in Whitefish Bay.