Oldest Daughter's first year of middle school is drawing to a close. It hasn't been the easiest year. Since the end of February, however, she's been mostly healthy (thank God) and I haven't had any additional interactions with Middle School Nurse. More good news is that she's found a nice group of friends to help insulate her from the hormone-induced madness that overcomes some of her pubescent peers. But I'm still sorry she has to go there day in and day out.
Middle school strikes me as simultaneously large enough to be de-individualizing and hyper-vigilant enough to obliterate any semblance of privacy or solitude. Maybe solitude is not something of concern for the average 11-14 year old, but it seems like it would be a necessity - having a space where you can honor yourself and learn to nurture your uniqueness.
This year, I've struggled to manage the earlier pick up time for Oldest Daughter and the fact that it reduces the length of my workday by an hour. I don't HAVE to pick her up, of course, there is a bus that would bring her into our neighborhood. Maybe we'll try it next year, but this being our first child to go through middle school, I just didn't feel good about it. School buses bring back mixed feelings for me. They were the setting of some pretty vicious bullying in elementary school and I had daily stomachaches thinking about the bus ride home. In high school, they were the site of very loud, very exuberant team sing-alongs during rides to and from sporting events. Ah the '90s and the days of no smart phones. Living in a small rural area meant a minimum 30 minute bus ride to get ANYWHERE. If the ride was longer than 45 minutes or so the state required we be provided a small meal or snack. I wonder if the legislators who came up with this rule imagined the tasteless watery apples, rubbery 'cheese' and dry peanut butter sandwiches as somehow good for us. "You've lost, that lovin' feeling, oh-oh that lovin' feeling." We didn't win often, but we sure could harmonize.
Truth be told, it's a luxury to be the one to pick Oldest Daughter up after another day in the trenches of Middle School. The best part of my day is identifying my Not-Quite Teenager from among the throng spilling out of the heavy oak doors. Seeing her after time apart is like having a piece of myself returned. She's put on layaway every morning and only returned when I've paid the account balance in minutes and hours. When she gets in the car, I first feel relief and then all I can think is, how did I manage all day without her?
The Pick Up Ritual goes like this: I arrive early so that I can park with a view of the main doors. I wait and read or check messages or listen to the radio. Most days, I bring a Peace Offering of some sort: part of a giant cookie, a day-old muffin, a partially eaten bag of peanut M&Ms, a bottle of juice, or licorice. When I don't bring food, I bring library books or small writing and drawing supplies she's asked me to pick up. Sorry about another day of Middle School - have a biscotti.
Oldest Daughter shuffles down the cement steps and makes her way toward the car. She opens the back door first to toss in her book bag. She's favoring the messenger bag these days and has only just switched from her brown pilot jacket to a lighter-weight spring coat. She rolls the cuffs of her pants up so that by afternoon she's always sporting capris. I guess her calves need the air. Her hair is long enough now to pull back into a small knot at the nape of her neck. The messenger bag bounces against the side of her hip. In a former life, the messenger bag belonged to a Mary Kay consultant. We bought it at the thrift shop and I spent a few evenings ripping out the embroidered pink threads that made up the logo. In the process I inadvertently ripped a few small holes in the black fabric of the bag. My solution was to sew a stylized bird patch over them.
"Hiiii," she says as she gets into the front passenger seat. She's big enough to ride in the front now minus the sort of safety apparatus her brother and sister still require. I recall turning her car seat from rear-facing to front-facing. Wasn't that 5 minutes ago? "Hey," I say, I brought you X," and I give her the Peace Offering. She's young enough to still show surprise or delight. See, I was thinking about you. This half-eaten treat proves it. Actually, I'm probably rarely NOT thinking about her and her siblings. She would like this; she wouldn't like that; I want to bring Oldest Daughter here; I want to see that movie with her, etc.
Why do I bring things to my daughter? I want her to look forward to The Ritual that we've created and spending time with me. When I eat part of it, the Peace Offering becomes a physical manifestation of our sharing, of our bond. We're still connected and I need the connection to be tangible. Because it feels like in another 5 minutes I won't have The Ritual to look forward to. I won't see her every day and we'll have to invent new rituals, new sacred objects and peace offerings to bind us together.
I drive away from Middle School toward the elementary school of Middle Daughter and Youngest Son. Another round of pick ups and rituals is next. On the drive, we talk about the events of the day as we experienced them. I try to put mine in story form because I know Oldest Daughter likes to imagine what I do all day. She tells me about jokes she and her friends told at school. We speak a language made almost entirely of cultural references and inside jokes. "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra," for my Star Trek: TNG fans. She's appropriated the jokes of MST3K and uses them to crack up her classmates. She wrote a school report about director Sam Raimi. Our conversation topics range from My Little Pony and how awesome Rainbow Dash is to Descartes and Western Philosophy.
We arrive at the elementary school with 10 minutes to spare. "Mom, come and swing with me," she says. I reply "Oh, I'm not really up to swinging. Can I go on the 'sits' instead of the swings?" But I go anyway. I sit and she swings and her feet touch the clouds.
