going back

July 31. End of the summer, regardless of the calendar, or the weather, or that popular three-month refrain. August is definitely Fall. I am trying to be ready. My trunk is full of school supplies, both for me and for them. I've made my first reconnaissance trips into the timewarp of my classroom, the place where time seems to have stood still even though May 2009 is now "last year." It happens the same way every July: I make the long drive with a renewed awareness of the distance, the annual thought running through my mind as the odometer blinks forward: "Do I really do this every day?" It seems impossible and foreign, some one else's life. But then I arrive, finally, unlock my door and plunge in to the darkness, walking foward with my hand out to the light switch on the other side. I feel along the wall, surroundings not quite familiar, routine not quite remembered, but once I find the switch, flip it on, and look around, it's as if I never left.

The carpet is clean, true, my desk is uncluttered, the whiteboards are blank. There's a bit of blank slate in the air, but as my mental to-do list begins to fill itself in, the place mostly feels like home.