In a quiet few minutes at work yesterday I was filling out my timesheet.  Actually, I had three to fill out because I've been so slackerly at work this year that I haven't even bothered getting paid on time.  My little second graders were out with other people and I had fifteen minutes to get my hours figured out and recorded before I was going to meet the pizza partying third graders for their recess. 

The second grade's small group area was deserted and quiet and I was actually enjoying the experience of sitting while being paid to do so.  My job has zero minutes per week spent sitting so this was a novelty.  My young friend Andrew was cruising through the hall, his yearbook in hand.   The graduating class has been busy making merry for the past week and they've had picnics and trips at the time we'd usually run into each other.

"Will you sign my yearbook?" he asked and I replied with an honest "I'd love to, Andrew."  and I reached for the book and turned to the place I sign everyone's book, the inside last cover, the bottom outside corner.  I generally tell the kids that I'm giving them homework when I sign their books.  In elementary school people usually sign books with just their name--it's more of an autograph than an entry--but I assign homework.  The homework for each child is the same because I am an equal opportunity yearbook signer.  Their faces react the same as every other kid's face.  Disappointment or maybe dread, but they usually are resigned to being stuck doing their assignment.

The kidlet takes the book back and checks out the homework assignment.  It reads:

Have fun!!!   Mrs. Hayden!!!

and with a little laugh they are off to get someone else's signature. 

That's the usual drill.

With my friend Andrew's book, it was different.  He's different, I guess.  He is one of the very few kids who lives in my neighborhood, about two blocks away from me, around the corner, at the bottom of the hill.  He doesn't pass here and I don't often pass his house, but we know we're from the same 'hood and we are happy to have each other in the 'hood.  I can't really explain it, but there's a bond there.  And next year I won't see him at school.  As I took his book the thought I'd had before that I'll miss him kept me from writing that glib homework assignment to him.  I've missed kids before when they've gone onto the bigger world and I know that missing them is part of the cycle of working in a school and caring about the kids I work with.  Having that book in my hand in the quiet hallway let my emotions wash over my more sensible stoicism.   My ability to scribble something without thinking about it wasn't in me at that minute.  What to do?

I told him the truth.  "Andrew, I'm going to write "I will miss you" because I will.  I don't usually write that, but I  will really miss seeing you here."    And he teared up;  he was at a loss for that minute too.  He's going to a big new school.  He's not a little kid anymore and life is changing for him.

"I'll miss you, too,"  he answered.  And then I said what was the sensible thing to say when life is changing.

"You're going to love middle school;  it's so much fun.  Kids at middle school can't believe how much fun going to school is."

At least I was telling him the truth then too.

Two interludes in my life, one day after the other have taken their positions in my psyche.

The first was yesterday, watching the free scene from the movie "Superman Returns" offered by iTunes.  I've never downloaded a video from iTunes before, but I thought Parker would enjoy it and the computer was being underused at the time. 

The scene took quite a long time to download, but I stuck around to have a look.  I like those cartoony movies that my drama fan friends look down their noses at.  I wouldn't say I enjoyed "Hellboy", but Spidey and the X-man are fine entertainment, if you ask me, so Parker wasn't the only  viewer I had in mind, if I'm going to be honest about it.

And the scene was worth the wait; it did a good job of communicating the nature of the movie.  There was Peril in Metropolis and the scene showed terror and chaos in the high rises where people were doomed because their jobs' locations were impossible to flee from.  I'm a fan of comic-based movies, but this clip left me no appetite to see the film.  "9-11,"  I thought, "That's taken the fun out of this kind of movie.  We've seen the real thing and make-believe doesn't entertain us anymore."

The second interlude:  Tonight I read that seven people in Miami were arrested for plotting to attack the Sears Tower and other buildings.  The Sears Tower is a landmark in Chicago, a city less than an hour from my house. 

More terrifying for me is that my dear son Eric works on one of the Sears Tower's 110 floors.  He's only 23 and he has the world by the tale, careerwise.  He studied hard, worked to put himself through college,  had internships both tedious and terrific, took four of the professional exams he could have waited until he was emplyed to take and really applied himself.

And his reward?  A job that will take him wherever he wants to go, I've been told by others.  Sixty hour workweeks some weeks and preparing for the next exam besides.  Leaving his car near his apartment to get parking tickets while he takes mass transit downtown to that exciting building he works in.  Getting into the elevator and rising up to the place business is done.

In that building that someone wants to attack, to cause terror and despair and loss and grief.

This group has been arrested, but they've succeeded even though they never got to the Sears Tower.  I wish I was strong enough not to worry, I wish I believed that Eric never thought twice about getting into that elevator, except to be happy that he'd worked hard when he needed to.  I wish I still could be pacified by make-believe.

This summer is a string of days and each of them is so nearly the same that one could be another one.  There is always a late, slow start.  There is plenty of time with my two younger children, pleasant some of the time and with a strain of conflict some of the time.  The strain is what makes the pearl days less than good enough to qualify as best quality.  The tension brings disappointment and regret into the strand.  These won't be looked on fondly when they are over;  they will be tucked away with relief for not having to look at them directly again.