Ellen had her first day of school today and it went well. It's hard to explain the foolish and strange feelings that I had during her first day of school.
My own school experiences until college were at best mixed. There is so much hope and ego and empathy wrapped up in that school experience; it defines us for a time, and any deep scars obtained take a long time to heal, if they ever do. I remember my first grade teacher hitting me with a wooden paddle on the knuckles (corporal punishment was o.k. in Ohio), getting beat up almost every day in 6th grade, missing a good 1/3 of 7th and 8th grade due to problems with recurring pneumonia, and just trying to straddle the great divides between Jocks, Brains, Rockers, and Theater Geeks during high school.
It (I?) was a mess, and it took me a good deal of college and graduate school to figure out that it was o.k. and even valuable to be who I was, even if none of the traditional labels fit.
Now I am submitting my daughter to the same grind, and I wonder if I'm doing the right thing. On the plus side, I believe it's a considerably upgraded grinder (espresso soy latte?) here in Edina, and Ellen's kindergarten teacher seems very nice. I hope and pray that her experience is a less rocky one, and that she can navigate the shoals of fickle popularity to find true kindred spirits and to learn a good many things along the way.
