“School’s stupid,” the boy occasionally blurts out, then hurries off to check on his new backpack, excited and anxious. He likes school, but is too stubborn to admit it. Yesterday he randomly counted off the hours to when it would all begin. “43 hours until school begins.” “38 hours until school begins.” “34 hours until school begins,” and then finally fell asleep.
A new year and a new school. The path through his summer that ends tomorrow seems much clearer than my own. With each announcement of his approaching new year, my mouth formed words, saying something about the adventure of a new school, new friends, and on and on, while my brain did things like calculate the additional monthly fuel cost of getting the boy across town each morning, simultaneously replaying old, faded clips of my own youth, so much of it spent on the move. By the time I’d graduated from high school, I’d accepted the idea that a new school year meant a new school. The faces surrounding my childhood were always new and unknown. People became things to be unraveled, discovered, and understood. I think of it now as my twelve year lesson in adaptation.
Perhaps all the moving I did as a child is what made this summer so painfully long for me. The constant worry about money and the idea of another forced move, pushing towards me, seemingly as inevitable as the turning of the leaves, which I know can’t be too far away. I can’t ever remember struggling so hard to remain in one place, and I’m realizing more and more that it is a battle that my childhood never prepared me for. I’ve become convinced over the years that a sense of permanence isn’t something we’re born with, but rather something that we pick up along the way through family or religion or maybe tradition. And to have a sense of permanence, a real sense that sustains and strengthens, and helps guide you through the years, there must be more to cling to than one’s own thoughts. It is easy to forget that the mind and body are at polar opposites, coming together so few times in our lifetime. Three that I can think of. Birth, climax, death. One is long past for me, and another mostly nonexistent. The other waits for me in some distant place, anxious for me to catch up, and I think it is this sense of it’s waiting that has me now grasping for permanence, however temporary it may be. I think my body and my mind may be working together on a fourth thing, although I have no idea what it might be called. An agreement of sorts where the two of them decide it’s alright for me to spend out the remainder of my days tricked and comforted. The mind confesses to having spent nearly it’s entire time in that state, and now seems to be inviting the body to join it, like two chairs that are both missing legs, agreeing to strap themselves together and call themselves a couch, hoping to retain a bit of function in their lives.