Thoughts on the First Day of School

Today was the first day of school for me. It is the second year after I was awarded tenure. The third beginning since I came back from a leave from which I thought I would never return to this school, this town, this state. Yet, I am here on another first day.

All day, students asked if I was sad summer was over. I replied honestly, “Not really.” This summer was long for all the worst reasons. Family illnesses (with healthy outcomes), a prolonged heat wave with a child who is Teflon in his love of being outdoors, and I moved house. Even if it had been the summer I fell in love with Oaxaca or the summer I was 10 and begin to crave the feel of the Texas sun on the bare skin of my back, I would say the same. I think it is because the first day is a seasonal demarcation, particularly in the life of academics and children, of a time when you can be better, do better.

I sat at my desk looking at case law from 1466 and thought the only new things about this day are the students and me. They sit down and look to me for everything that they will need in the days and years to come and I look at them with a desire to engage them better. I want to teach them more than the previous class. I want to be clearer in my explanation of the material. These are my goals as a professor, but the regularity of the first day also provides an opportunity to think about the ways I want to be better in the lives I lead parallel.

In my life as a woman, as a daughter, as a mother, the goals are roughly similar. I want to better engage the people I love. I want to give them more care and concern than I did in the years previous. I want to be clearer in my explanation of my needs and actions.

This is the beginning. It will come again. I will need it…again