Back to School

Back to school means...
...no more sleeping in
...no more lazy afternoons at the pool
...no more messy car (We try harder to keep it clean for the carpool.)
...no more questions like, "What do you want to do today?"
...no more children lounging around the house

In short, no more irresponsibility.

I guess I hate the end of anything. Even though we tried to savor our weeks of freedom, on this eve of the first day of school I have pangs of regret. The season is over and we wasted precious time. We didn't value what we had. We didn't maximize the possibilities embodied in the very idea of summertime.

It's time now to return to alarm clocks, sack lunches, homework, and bedtimes. Every morning our family will scatter in all directions, and every evening we will reconvene at home - it's miraculous, really, how that happens.

We will all be more productive.

It's for the best - it really is - but I will miss the pitter patter of little feet around here. [Okay, they aren't so little anymore. Emily's feet have grown two and a half shoe sizes since spring!]

All of this reminds me of the last stanza of a Robert Frost poem called 'Reluctance.' I memorized these lines a long time ago and think of them at melancholy times like these, amazed by Frost's remarkable understanding of the human condition:

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than treason,
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with grace to reason
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or season?