The calm before the storm
Summer is winding down. My sons have finished an idyllic 8 weeks of crafts, field trips, swimming and dodge ball at the local YMCA. The nights are cooler and here in the Finger Lakes the leaves are just beginning to turn. We’ll soon pack up the car and head back to Brooklyn. I can barely contain my excitement.
It’s not that I’m looking forward to the relentless routine of early starts and homework; far from it. It’s more that the start of the school year, always feels like a new beginning, far more so than January 1. So much more so, that I found myself accidentally writing a list of “new year’s” resolutions this morning.
It began as a list of practical “to-do’s” list, things like “dispose of baby items” (the ones we have been storing over the cupboard for nearly six years), go for the blood test and the annual mammogram (both several months overdue) but quickly became more aspirational and ambitious.
--take-a-course-and-become-a-casually-brilliant-home-chef
--work-through-the-New-York-Review-of-Books-list-of-classic-children’s-literature-with-the-boys
-- go-to-more-art-shows
--take-the-kids-to-art-shows-thus-saving-them-from-a-world-completely-dominated-by-Super-Mario
--write-more-write-better
--walk-in-the-park
--read-more-fiction
--turn-off-the-!@#$%^-iPhone;
--be-frugal
--arrange-more-play-dates-(you pathetic wimp of a parent)
--determine-The-True-Meaning-of-Life
And so on.
The truth is, few people actually keep their New Year’s resolutions. I’d like to think this isn’t some profound statement about the human ability to change but more about being stuck in midwinter lock-down with a well established routine just waiting to suck us back to the grind. The early days of September, fortified by balmy days and coolish nights, before the rhythm of the school year drowns out everything else seems a little more do-able.
So this year, I’m making my “new year’s” resolutions in September – and I’ve roped in the rest of the family. My oldest son wants to learn to cook. My husband wants to get more sleep. My youngest thinks it’s silly and resolves to do “nuthin”.
Will resolutions in September be more enduring the official kind we make in January? I’d like to think so, but time will tell.
Do you have any resolutions for the new school year?
Nancy McDermott
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