She darts in and out of slow, day-weary bodies,
slipping past shoulders, bobbed hair, crew cuts.
In her element, she apex predator lunges forward:
high on ball of foot, sure of step.
Far down the hall, soon she's thirty people apart from me;
I have no hope of keeping up.
"Wait up!" I cry. "I'm old!"
A digital bell rings, its false metallic bleating
signalling the start of the next period.
I "excuse me!" and "Just squeezin' by here!" my way
through a crush of ambling, semi-confused parents
and their chattering almost-teens and new teens.
= = =
A student braces herself, mid-hall,
legs in extended duopod, smartphone outstretched.
She's snapping a photo "For Yearbook!" she exclaims.
My daughter poses against the painted cinder block: "Cheese!"
A rare genuine grin flashes; is that school pride showing?
This snapshot promises to be on record for years to come,
if not in reality — because my kid's off on foot, again.
= = =
I follow my teen's contrails into the first corner of a far wing,
somehow manage to arrive in the mathematics department.
I cram my tall frame into a middle school beige worktop,
the kind fused to a tubular steel desk.
My body buckles as I contort it into an awkward small package,
taking on the shape of an AI-hallucinated paper crane.
My knees crash into the underside of the laminate.
Gifted matching bruises, protruding screws leave their mark,
a zinging reminder that I have outgrown childhood.
I revert into a curved-shouldered oaf, 'a monster on the hill.'
I survey this room, eyes squinting for confirmation:
yes, I am surrounded by Swiftian 'sexy babies.'
Desktops groan with Louis Vuitton Neverfulls
and Goyard Saint-Louis totes;
pairs of groomed hands carefully clasp in
an air of grace and peace I don't possess.
A scan of the ground reveals pristine On Cloud trainers,
floral Adidas designer collabo kicks; saddle leather executive sneakers.
A fleet of toned, tanned and moisturized ankles.
I peep down at my own pale dry pair in old sandals,
and curl them under my seat.
I feel on display and wrong, not unlike my school days.
I ask myself, Do I even belong here?
My daughter rolls her eyes at me, implying telepathically, if not empathetically:
MOM!
DON'T MAKE A SCENE!
I open my notebook, poise my pen;
this I can do smoothly.
An educator, eyes shiny despite the late hour,
emits an almost nuclear glow of joy while
clicking through a Promethean board slide deck
extolling the virtues of a sturdy metal compass
and an eye on the prize:
"If your students keep pace, they'll be in multivariate calculus come their senior year.
"And what a gift that will be!"
By the end of their year overview,
the next synthetic chimes fills our ears,
and I too am gung-ho on alternate interior angles
and the future of my STEM genius-to-be.
= = =
I follow the neon blur of my daughter's tank top
as she sprints through the next set of turns,
the throngs of hallway dwellers that she navigates like Frogger
and whom I treat as fellow humans worthy of pardon mes.
Now in a language classroom, I scan the room of guardians.
I inhale their charged pheromones,
a scent of intrigue, arousal of the mind,
as they listen to the journeys our students will take this year,
learning about themselves, about planet sustainability,
about how to share memories of childhood,
and how to apply for a job competently, in a second tongue.
Another buzz and we're off to the next subject.
My Teenmanian Devil swirls through another flight of stairs.
I track her distant trail, until she stops of her own accord.
A swivel-head, cement-legged parent has asked for my daughter's assistance.
I hold my breath, waiting for my child to unleash a fury on this stranger.
Instead, my kid brushes the mom's shoulder, leads her forward, nods back to me,
a tacit "I got this" before she twists back and onward,
rendering enlightenment to this lost traveler.
Now I'm the one stuck in place, my heart caught in my esophagus.
My cheeks fly high, catching on my bones as I grin.
I hang back, let her be the guide, the boss, the big kid on campus.
Freed up, I bump into fellow veterans, those school moms
I've come to know on this night once a year across the past decade.
Sitting on the bleachers in the gymnasium,
my compatriots and I whisper.
We cup hands over ears, using our other to mask toothy smiles.
Dangerously close to being caught by the teachers, we continue undaunted.
We conspire on game plans of brunch,
plot out the next MNO — Moms' Night Out, compare favorite vacation moments.
Somehow, we vouch to make concrete those loosely set aspirational meet-ups
promised way back when school let out in late June.
Buoyed, my frazzled soul vessel
— by late August more a loose weave basket than a vase —
now steadily fills with a sense of belonging, homecoming.
Warmly embracing the next lost friend
while waving to another over their head,
I remember my first trepid steps
in this echoing, fluorescent tube-lit maze
just a few years back.
How much my shoulders slumped in submission
as I dizzily traced a paper map to the next classroom.
How separate, othered I felt as a newcomer.
How my jaw dropped as I learned how many miles
my little first year would traverse
just to get from one room to the next each day.
Tonight, I am run-down from the workday.
But now, a wilted flower watered gently by summer rains,
I grow straighter, taller as the evening unfolds.
This is my reunion, too.
Two hours later, as daughter and mother
push open heavy, bullet-proof double doors
cut through the dark, wet grass,
we each skip, a bounce in our energized cadence.
For a brief moment, she reaches out for me,
grabs my hand, holds me.
My heart fills to full, and I hold this feeling.
Back to School Night, back to our future.
