My youngest child has just graduated from elementary school. In 2004, the school where I first passed through the gate and held a small chunky hand. A rite of passage.
He is the last athletic meet. Yearbook. A graduation ceremony where various music performances are performed at the church. “After” party. Lots of hugs and a few emotions.
I think when I left sixth grade, all we had to do was scribble on each other’s uniforms and dive into the ocean. (It happened again — we both grew up in the same seaside town.) But if that was important, there was probably no actual formal marking of it other than confirmation.
Today, we are a little better at noticing the milestones of children’s lives than they were then. In fact, we generally prefer children.
I am very happy to have this normality. I know the sixth class in the last few times missed it during a pandemic. Some may say it’s unavoidable, but I think I’ve completely denied the impact of the pandemic on children.
The phrase “people are dying” was used to defeat any expressed concern about the effects of restrictions. The discussion of proportionality or actual risk-benefit analysis has been largely lost here in a mist of horrifying and responsive exaggeration.
It was a normal 6th grade, but the 4th and 5th grades were messed up. All the kids were at home and no one was watching. There was something vague and scary in the ether. Substandard school education. Anxious parents.
Lockdown 1.0 was a dystopia. I remember sitting down for dinner one evening. I couldn’t receive grocery deliveries because of love or money, and I wasn’t allowed because there were two cases of Covid-19. I was listening to the news on the radio. Borders were closed and random police checkpoints were reported to monitor people’s movements. It was like a movie at the end of the day.
Our children lived through it, and The duration of their lives is proportionally longer than anyone else. I don’t know exactly how to measure the long-term effects, but I think it looks like an old scar on a tree trunk. Something they would carry throughout their lives was absorbed into their structure. They function normally and grow, but are still marked.
The good thing is the unnatural tranquility, just as we could see social withdrawal adversely affecting them. Their fast-growing self-confidence is waning — I can still see them emerging from it.
It’s once again normal for them to hang out with their peers in the green areas of a residential complex. I come home late for a meal. And to send a text asking if they can stay “a little longer”.
The flash of cheeky rebellion as they bend their new independence is welcomed compared to being too obedient or serious from the excessive time they spend in adult companies.
Normality is back, and thankfully it’s not a “new normality”, but an old normality. Expect that the scars on the bark are just that, nothing more, and that it does not permanently change the direction of tree growth.
The time in elementary school is over. The forgotten lunch box no longer smells of old moldy sandwiches. Instead, roll the smell of moldy sports socks. plus çchange..
Second opinion
I’m not really a poetry reader. I’m generally too vulgar and don’t want to improve myself. Self-acceptance is much more fun. But twice this week, I was impressed with the poetry. If it can move a Philistine like me, it’s probably worth passing.
One was simply a beautiful poem called Small kindness From her book by Danusha Rameris Bonfire opera (University of Pittsburgh Press).
It’s about a small act of altruism that we extend to strangers and what it might mean: We are few of each other now. So far, from tribes and fire. Only at the moment of these short exchanges. If they are a holy dwelling, we make when we say “Here is my seat”, “Please, you are the first”, “I like your hat” What about these fleeting temples?
The other is a poetry book called Poetic license in the era of corona (21st Century Renaissance) By consultant obstetrician Chris Fitzpatrick.
Chris teaches me as a medical student and wants to be a better doctor, and in fact, a better person for me and many others of my generation. He’s that rarity — the truly inspiring person you’ve actually met. It’s beautiful and arrested.
Please read if you have the opportunity.
