“Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again.”
Tching-Thang
It is the third week of the new fall semester. The shock of the school year beginning has passed, and we are now more in the swing of things: we have found our stride, more or less. And when I say “we,” I mean both parents and children: Maria and Richard, elementary and high school teachers, and Julia and Elizabeth, seventh and fourth graders, respectively.
Summer has time aplenty where not much is going on, which is fine. Time doing not much of anything is still time doing something, in my opinion. My mother would occasionally go rent a hotel room for the weekend and not leave the room, just lounging around and reading or whatever in bed; she used to call this her “cave time,” and as an overwhelmed mother she claimed it was crucial for her mental health. I understand. I get it. Similarly, it is good to have lazy days in summer with not much planned. A rubber band cannot always be stretched to its limit without becoming brittle and finally snapping. Downtime is important. It is necessary.
But one should not have too many lazy days either, in my experience. Too much downtime. So everyone in our family by mid-August is ready to have more structure in the day. Ready to start a new school year with different teachers and fresh challenges. New soccer and tennis seasons with victories and defeats, new friendships and opportunities for growth. Everyone deserves a fresh start once in awhile. The arrival of the new school year offers this. Even adults far removed from their school days have memories of the opportunity for renewal which autumn brings.
But will they embrace it? Take advantage of this opportunity?
With the new school year and sports seasons, our family is busy. I remember reading “Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life” where Professor Annette Lareau’s researchers would follow middle class parents around in their daily lives. I remember reading about one father who would look at the family weekend schedule with a blizzard of sports and other extracurricular activities, and he would sigh heavily. He was overwhelmed by busyness. I can empathize. There is truth in the idiom that when we try to juggle everything, we can’t enjoy anything. Last weekend Elizabeth had four soccer games in two days in a town half an hour away, and my wife and I were exhausted by it. This tournament literally took the entire weekend away from us. Driving back and forth and waiting for the next game. But my daughter’s team eventually won the whole tournament and that was a big positive. But I was up at 5:45 am on Saturday morning to leave the house with Elizabeth at 6:20 so we had time to grab a quick bite at McDonald’s and arrive in Thousand Oaks at 7:10 warmups for her 8:00 game. Not only did I need to get Elizabeth to her soccer game in time, but she needed to eat some food so she had the fuel necessary to compete. It was an early Saturday morning to what became a busy two days.
My wife was exhausted and cranky after that weekend. She had not enough down time to relax and recharge for the next work week. That clearly was too much activity for one weekend. It happens. It can be so hard to find that sweet spot between too much after school activity and not enough — to find Aristotle’s Golden Mean.
This coming weekend looks busy, too. I have to get up at 5:35 am this Saturday morning to leave the house at 6:05 to grab a light breakfast on the road to arrive in Simi Valley at 7:00 (per coach’s instructions) warm-ups for Julia’s 8:00 am game. It is early. Saturday mornings can be nice for sleeping in. But I look forward to getting an early jump on an active weekend, and it makes me so happy to see my daughters vibrant and alive after running all over the soccer pitch for an hour. This is youth; this is health. Then there is the friendship of competing with one’s teammates. Being with other kids.
Elizabeth also has a soccer game this Saturday at noon in Oxnard. And then another one this Sunday in the city of Orcutt, which is a three and a half hour round trip drive away from us in Ventura. Yikes! That is not ideal. And Maria will have to drive to that soccer game, as my men’s 4.5 doubles team competes Sunday afternoon at three in our first competition of the fall season. I am the captain of that team. I am in charge of coordinating the court availability and who plays and at what position. And I will be competing, too. And a beer afterwards with the other team. I am excited to start! Exercise and camaraderie. High-level tennis, quality people, and strong friendships. The weekend should have beautiful Southern California weather with plenty of sunshine. We will be outside for much of it.
In her article “We Have Ruined Childhood,” I read where Kim Brooks wrote, “For many Americans, the nuclear family has become a lonely institution.” There is truth in that, if you sit at home and don’t put yourself out there. If you don’t get involved. If you sit around looking into your cell phone or at the video game console. Looking at screens: the default activity for too many Americans. The result: loneliness.
It is autumn! The new school year! An opportunity for renewal. Something we all deserve and can use now and again.
Try and learn a new language? Enroll in a community college class? An online course? Take up scuba diving? Get certified and make your first dive? Join Toastmasters or the Rotary Club? Shake some of the moss off the trunk of the old family tree?
Winter and semi-hibernation will be here soon. The sun will begin to set earlier. Life will turn inwards for the Christmas and New Year holidays. December and January. Indoors life. Then spring will finally arrive. The longer days will bring renewed activity.
But autumn is here now. The new school year. Football games. Activity and excitement. School dances. Halloween. Falling leaves and cooling weather. Winter imminent, but not here yet.
Happy autumn everyone!
Renew thyself.
Do it now.
THERE IS A CRISPNESS ON THE AIR
There is a crispness in the air today
that heralds the onslaught of autumn;
the shining sun hangs coldly in the sky
as summer fades once more into fall,
flooding me with the childhood memories
of falling yellow leaves, college football,
fires in fireplaces, brand new clothes,
and the earnest seriousness
of back-to-school excitement.
I feel heavy in my bones the switch
from bright summer to somber autumn
(the season of dying and death!),
and it always makes me nostalgic
for my restless adolescence;
reminding me of years past,
lost precious innocence,
the first girl I ever loved.
PHOTOS FROM SEPTEMBER 8, 2019 USTA TENNIS MATCH: GOOD TIMES
POSTSCRIPT:
What happened after this optimistic essay about the new school year and renewal?
Well, reality happened. “Man proposes, God disposes.” On that first soccer match on September 7th when we left in the pre-dawn darkness for Simi Valley, my daughter’s team got smartly smacked down losing 7-0. It was not even close. My daughter’s pride was wounded, and she was limping when the match was over. It was 80 degrees by 9 am in Simi Valley and my daughter’s face was red as a tomato from sprinting in the heat. We then argued over her playing junior team tennis on the way home in the car. It was not a great morning. Later, I sat watching my other daughter’s soccer match in Oxnard at one pm, sitting a few yards off the pitch. I was seated in a lawn chair with a towel draped over my head, Arab-style, trying not to get sunburnt. A player on the field kicked the soccer ball hard out of bounds to try and clear it, and that ball was deflected slightly by another player whereupon it flew straight towards and into my face. I did not have a chance to duck. The soccer ball struck me straight in the face and knocked my sunglasses and hat off some ten feel behind me. I was stunned. It hurt! The crowd audibly gasped.
And then I started to get sick. My throat was scratchy and my nose was running, although it seemed manageable. My tennis match on Sunday was unexpectedly tough, but my partner and I managed to pull off a victory in the super tiebreaker. It was a nervy victory — winning ugly. We won through being mentally tough at the end, but the contest left me physically and emotionally exhausted. On Tuesday I made perhaps an unwise decision to play tennis — two sets of hard singles with a 17 year old. Now the situation had drastically changed. I was no longer a bit sick; I was a lot sick. I was sick as a dog! I struggled badly through Wednesday at work which was a miserable day and called a substitute teacher for Thursday. I was also continuing to come into heated conflict with my older daughter who was fighting me about the junior team tennis — an unusual situation for both of us. Then she got sick and missed that Friday of school. She was highly in doubt for that weekend’s soccer matches. And my wife was beginning to complain of a sore throat, too. Good times!
I have been teaching for twenty six years. By mid-September I always say to my students, “The new school year has not really begun until you’ve gotten sick. For those of you have not yet gotten sick, it is only a matter of time!” The school classroom is the perfect germ incubator and spreads illness to both students and teacher alike. Well, at least that first illness will be behind my family in a week or so.
And if all this were not enough, our Internet went out on Wednesday. I called my provider while I was home sick on Thursday and they sent a technician to our house Friday afternoon to fix the problem. One does not appreciate Internet access until it is gone! And soon after I got off the phone with the Internet people, I head a loud snap in my garage. I went out and discovered that one of the two steel cables that lifts my garage door up had dramatically snapped. A technician came out that next day and installed a new cable, and $340 later the automatic garage door was opening and closing again. I had expected neither of these two problems this week. Alas.
The fall of 2019 will be a good one. But the week following this blog post was not a good one. You take the good with the bad, the thick with the thin. Patience is all.
I felt obliged to add these few paragraphs to my initial blog post. Some stand accused of painting an unfairly rosy picture of their lives through online postings, especially on Instagram. I aim for accuracy and truth in what I post to my personal webpage, as much as possible. So if my aspirations for fall 2019 are described in this blog post, the reality of that next difficult week should also be part of the public record.
