She wore pigtails.
I see her on the front stoop in a purple shirt sprayed with daisies and
wearing a backpack almost as big as she is. This, before posing for a picture
and climbing into the van to head to a place called "Sunshine House
Preschool." If you picture a place
called Sunshine House and think about the kind of people that might work at
such an establishment, you would understand the excitement of little pigtailed
girl.
My excitement, while fed by the quality of the program at
Sunshine House, was mostly due to the impending birth of a foreign-to-me
concept for the previous five years--Time To Myself. Time to write, time to grocery shop in peace,
time to ponder life without interruption, time to go to the bathroom in
solitude, time to wander through any store of my choice without the worry of
little hands touching or little feet doing wandering of their own. Did I
mention Time To Write?
I was Giddy. We couldn't get in the car fast enough.
I turned on NPR for the classical
music I always listened to since I had heard about the "Mozart
Effect." My mind wandered as I
drove, listening to a peppy violin concerto while the pigtailed one babbled,
"Violins! Violins! Violins!" in the backseat. She loved listening to violins, which
eventually led to violin lessons and that's a slice for another day.
As I fantasized about all the different things I might do
after dropping her off, the pull of the bookstore won out. Definitely, the book
store. That's what I'd do. Oh, the glory of uninterrupted book
shopping!
The monotone of the NPR announcer, explaining the history
of the piece we'd just been listening to faded to the background of my
consciousness. I was far, far away in my new old land of myself, of motherly
independence. Of sweet freedom. And then, in an unexpected way, I was
jerked back to reality. It wasn't a fender bender or a child throwing up in the
backseat. It wasn't something in the
scenery on our drive or a passing ambulance.
Music. "Here's a little Pomp and Circumstance for your
morning," the announcer intoned.
Immediately the car filled with the opening notes of the familiar
graduation march. My first thought was the last time I'd heard it, when I
walked in my own graduation at Michigan State University less than a decade
before. My second thought came upon looking in the rear view mirror at the
pigtails in the backseat. She was
looking out the window, listening and swaying a little to the music. Today was the first day of "The School
Years." A journey that would end
with Pomp and Circumstance. I pictured her, processing with a cap and gown, years down
the road, and I filled with a knowing that these school years would fly. The excitement of my new found freedom would
ebb, and someday I would grieve a bit for all the interruptions of which I was
currently celebrating a welcome disappearance.
I wiped tears away, laughing at myself, feeling
bittersweet already about an event to happen fifteen years in the
future.
This month we will listen once again to Pomp and
Circumstance as that daughter processes to receive her high school diploma.
Sunshine House Preschool recently closed its doors due to low enrollment. So many
school districts offer preschool now and times have changed. Only a couple of
years ago did I get rid of that backpack. And little did I know then that I'd be
toting another almost preschooler to her big sister's high school graduation in
2015. We'll be back at our old stomping grounds of nearby
Michigan State as she walks, smiling in anticipation of her sweet freedom and not fully knowing the burden of such things or able to see
the golden glow of a childhood in the rear view mirror. It will just be our girl, caught up in a
moment of her own Pomp. Her own Circumstances. And that's as it should be.
