The air is crystal clear and the sun sharp. Today is as lovely as yesterday though maybe a bit cooler. The back of my house, the last place the sun hits each day, is usually my refuge from the heat. This morning it’s chilly. Gracie just came inside for her morning nap. I’m surprised she didn’t sleep on the deck lounge. Earlier, the breeze was blowing the chimes hanging from trees in the backyard. I heard the sweetness of the smallest bells.

Yesterday I went to Staples. The place was crowded with parents holding lists, filling baskets and dragging kids from aisle to aisle. One mother asked her son if he wanted red or blue three ring binders. He told her he didn’t care. The boy had back to school blues and buying school supplies was about the last thing he wanted to be doing.

My mother bought the usual for our return to school. We always got new shoes, usually Buster Brown’s which were sturdy and lasted most of the year. If we had grown out of our uniforms, we got new blue skirts and new white blouses. My brother got new pants and white shirts. We wore ties with our uniforms, blue clip-ons that looked like cowboys might wear them to a hoedown for the girls and bow ties for the boys. We always got new ones because the old ties had been tossed at the end of the previous year. They took a beating because after school every day we’d stuffed them in our school bags for the walk home, and there they’d stay until the next morning. Pencil boxes and school bags were next on the list. I always liked shopping for those. My favorite pencil boxes had everything except duct tape: regular pencils, colored pencils, a small thin 6 inch ruler, a half circle ruler, a pencil sharpener and an eraser. My school bag had both a handle and a strap for over the shoulder. I used to try it on to see how it felt. We’d buy lined white paper with red margins and one Indian tablet. I remember I’d put all my supplies in and out of the school bag until I thought they were just right.

It didn’t matter whether we liked school or not on that first day. It was exciting to put on new clothes and shoes and walk to school. We’d discuss the teacher we were getting because we always knew. We alternated: one year a nun, the next year a real person.