And....they're back.

And so am I. 

I know, while much of the country has been back at school for weeks, we hold-outs on the eastern seaboard tend to take our sweet time in returning (and, don't forget, as a pricetag for the piper we get out late in June on the other end). So, after a great long weekend with friends, we all toddled off yesterday in our various directions.

Ah, the fresh page of a new school year.  All those new school supplies! All those good intentions! All those nervous transitions and tired afternoons (summer makes us wimps) and loaded emotions. It's a bit of a ride, this first week.  I forget that every year.

And then I read this from Julie of Mental Tesserae (ah! here's the advantage of starting school later--you get everyone's else's wisdom up front) and I thought, yep. Exactly:

"My kids are all starting school and riding their various emotional hurricanes. At least once a day, one of them washes up next to me, all soggy and windblown and bruised from the latest blast of national disaster proportions. Each of them needs a healthy, sympathetic, focused mother with unlimited mental and emotional resources. Instead they are stuck with me, the Michael "Brownie" Brown of personal hurricane relief...Sadly for my children, I am not the font of wisdom. I am not the font of anything. Except maybe Kleenex and a deep sense of genuine, if somewhat distracted, compassion." (So well put. I second it. Also read her posts describing her experiment in following Ramadan this month.)

Eventually we'll all get it together, pretty much. Even me. Notice the lack of photos here? I  forgot to take back-to-school photos.  First time in 13 years, no early morning, bleary-eyed photos with new backpacks and wet hair with comb tracks. None. But, hey, we're out of school tomorrow for Rosh Hashanah so maybe I can dub Friday our Back to School, take two.

. . .

Listen:  Arcade Fire ~ Wake Up

and also: Debussy ~ Claire de Lune