School’s. Out. For. Ever.

 

Specific last days of school I cannot easily recall, none without photographic documentation, and these tend to be graduations, not, strictly speaking, last days of school. So, for the record, I document, this, my last day of school.

‘Twas an unusual work day for me in this COVID era in that I actually went into the office and worked, pretty much the entire day, with little time for reflection on its lastness. Only one other person in the suite, and when she asked how it felt to be wrapping up my work, I had to cut short the conversation to wrap up my work. A few loose ends remain, but enough of the leave-taking has been accomplished over the past week to seem final enough. I’m done and gone.

I must confess that that last few days clearing my office and cleaning out my desk have prompted some wistfulness. Strangely subdued and pensive moments, I try to remember the faces of the names on my class list and cannot, easily, even those who have written unsolicited evaluations and appreciations, warm ones. Which make me feel as if my efforts have not been wasted or lost, much as I play them down, and preserve me from an all too false modesty. Okay, I did some good work, maybe more than I give myself credit for.  

For almost sixty years, I’ve looked forward, annually, to the last day of school, to the vacancy, the vagrancy of summer, the unclocked passage of time, the succession of mornings that sometimes  requires a conscious pause and momentary mental effort to establish day and date, and even, identity. One can get lost in that vastness. One can wake up in places one has not seen before in morning light, has not yet recorded in long-term memory, and ask, Where?... and then, almost spookily, Who?...before returning to self in real time. Here I stand on the last, the very last, of those last days, in the midst of a Minnesota winter, with all its discontents, both local and worldly, yet at the threshold of glorious personal summer.