Graduation ~ Moving On

It is graduation season, and the predictable beat of Pomp and Circumstance resonates from school gymnasiums as students everywhere march toward the next phase in their lives.

Last week marked the 20^th anniversary of my high school graduation. Next week my two oldest children will “graduate” from preschool. All around our region this month, students are making transitions – from middle school to high school, high school to graduate, college student to work force.

I have only a vague, time-warped memory of my high school commencement – a white polyester gown to go with the tasseled cap, friends and family gathered, the rain that moved the ceremony from the football field to the gym at Westborough High School. 

In an attempt to recollect my thoughts of that day, I dug out my old journal last week. The entries surrounding graduation are filled with the words of mixed emotions: excitement, fear about the unknown future, disbelief that the first 13 years of my schooling were coming to an end and that I’d soon be leaving the only town I’d called home for a college six hours away.

“I don’t quite know how to feel – excited, scared beyond words, nostalgic,” I wrote in neat lines of cursive. “At the same time, I feel free, invincible – you know, like an 18-year old… So much is changing, and change may very well be my greatest fear!”

What struck me most as I read those words two decades after writing them – beyond the revelation that I once had such neat penmanship – was the anxiety that seemed to overshadow the celebration. It reminded me that graduation – whether from preschool or middle school, high school or college – marks both a beginning and an end and is both celebratory and wistful.

Like any major life change there’s likely something worth holding onto in the old and something wonderful to look forward to in the new. The trick is that you may not realize what those things are at the moment of transition.

Two years ago, as I prepared to send my children to school for the first time, I was torn between the freedom preschool would allow me to do more work, to regain a small sense of flexibility, and the terrifying knowledge that I was delivering my children into a world completely unknown to them.

I was a mess of nerves as I shepherded them out the door toward that first morning, and by the time we’d loaded up the family minivan for the short drive to school, I was shaking. Partly I was anxious for these shy, reserved, precious babies who had never been cared for by anyone other than their parents and grandparents. And partly I was conflicted between wanting them to go and wanting them to stop growing up so dang fast.

My little boy, who had eyes only for Mama, jumped right in, with barely a backward glance to see if I was still there. For my little girl, who is strong in so many ways, the transition involved lots of tears, plenty of drop-off clinginess, and my heart breaking a little bit every day.

The preschool my children attend is amazing, with great teachers, good kids, and lots of exploration of both ideas and the world just outside the schoolroom door. When you’re 3- or 4- or 5-years-old, school is a fun adventure, a combination of short bursts of focused learning, blissfully messy art projects, and playing with friends.

For the lucky students, schooling – and life in general – remains an adventure, an exploration, a joyful experiment. Of course, there are also tests, long papers to write on topics that may not captivate you, teachers you might not get along with, and homework, just as in life there are challenging projects, difficult co-workers, and too-long days on a stressful job.

I’m more than twice the age I was when I graduated high school, with 20 more years of living added to my resume of life experience. And my preschoolers are nearly kindergartners. They can count to 100 – by ones or tens – and spell their names in uppercase and lowercase letters. They’re learning to read. They can pump on the swings and hit a baseball off a tee and ski expert runs. They’re still shy and reserved among people outside their inner circle, and silly beyond belief with those they know and trust.

Next year, they’ll probably be a little timid at the start of kindergarten, in “the big school,” and I imagine I’ll be a bit of a wreck, again, on the first day of school. It won’t surprise me if I shed a tear or two as my children once more enter an unfamiliar world with new people and new rules, the next phase in the long process of growing up.

But they’re excited, too, and they’ll figure it out. Just as the kids moving up from 8^th grade will learn the ropes of high school. Just as the ones graduating from the high school or college this spring will bask in the glow of accomplishment and the excitement – and uncertainty – over whatever comes next.

No matter if you’re a 5-year-old starting off in a new school, an 18-year-old moving beyond the familiar parameters of high school, or a parent watching a new phase unfold for your child, the change marked by graduation can be both scary and exciting. But we usually adjust, and with a little luck and some work hard, we can grow and thrive.

At the end of my first college semester I had achieved the two big goals I’d had - earning good grades and a spot on the varsity soccer team (where I did a fabulous job of warming the bench) at Ithaca College. From the old familiar comfort of home, between semesters, I added these words to my journal: “I nervously moved away from all that was familiar and secure and jumped head first, anxiously into the world between childhood and adulthood known as ‘college.’ I have met so many new people and friends and have continued to grow and learn.” Life after graduation, it turned out, was pretty good.

To everyone graduating this year, whether from preschool or high school or college or anything in between and beyond – congrats, good luck, and here’s hoping you love the life you find as you move on.

A version of this essay appears in the Record-Littleton this week.

Related Post: Forever,in the blink of an eye 

Memorial Day ~ Remembering

It’s Memorial Day Weekend, and for many of us that means an extra day off, time spent with friends and family, barbeques and maybe a few beers over the long weekend. Stores will hold “Memorial Day” sales, and the roads to beaches everywhere will be clogged as we head into the long-awaited summer season.

Lest we forget, though, Memorial Day is about the sacrifice made by the more than 1.3 Americans who have died in the wars of our country.

This is the day set aside to remember the men and women throughout United States history who have given their lives in military service so that all of us are free to realize the American ideals that we treasure – and often take for granted – life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Freedom to say what we want to when and how we want to say it. Freedom to practice whatever religion we choose – or none at all. Freedom to speak out against and stand up to injustices.

Memorial Day was born from our country’s darkest days. Many communities during the Civil War observed a “Decoration Day,” placing flowers on the graves of the war dead. More Americans – 625,000 – died in that war than in any other, accounting for nearly half of U.S. war fatalities in our country’s history.

The first Memorial Day was proclaimed in May 1868 to honor those who died during the Civil War, with flowers placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers in Arlington National Cemetery. After World War I Memorial Day evolved to commemorate Americans who have died fighting in each of the country’s wars.

It was not until 1971, more than a century after the end of the Civil War and as the United States was reeling from the casualties and social strife of Vietnam, that Memorial Day was officially made a national holiday.

This weekend, flags will be lowered to half-staff. Some towns will hold parades with color guards and marching bands. American flags will be placed at the graves of soldiers all around our country, and flowers will appear on the graves of many, both soldier and civilian, as families and friends remember loved ones.

Military outfits and veterans groups will hold ceremonies to honor their fallen comrades – those from recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the loss still a fresh scar of pain, as well as the war dead of past generations, reaching to the earliest days of our country.

It is the current members of the military and the veterans who have served before, of course, who fully understand the meaning of Memorial Day, of the sacrifice made for freedom. The veterans have returned from wars, but they leave much on the battlefield or in the war zone, and often they lose friends there. For those who have served and continue to serve, and those who have lost a friend or brother, a son or daughter or spouse, Memorial Day has real meaning.

As for the rest of us, whether we are at the beach, grilling out with friends, shopping, or just relaxing one extra day this weekend – may we pause to remember, to give thanks, and to hope for the day when there are no new names to add to our war memorials.

Changing pace

The merit of changing life’s pace hit me several summers ago, when I spent a few afternoons each week working as a docent at The Frost Place in Franconia. I’ve always enjoyed stopping to smell the roses – both figuratively and literally – but I had recently entered into a new stage of my life, one that involved two babies and plenty of hectic.

Five months earlier, I had become the mother of twins. After several years as a small-town newspaper reporter, with a finger on the pulse of the local communities and a schedule as unpredictable as the news, I was immersed in a new reality of relatively sleepless nights and baby talk, dirty diapers and midnight feedings, caring for two little beings when I’d only really ever had to take care of myself. I’d started doing a little writing from home, but getting out of the house – by myself – was emancipating.

Some days at the farmhouse just down the road and around the bend, where the poet Robert Frost lived nearly 100 years ago, were busy with visitors. Others were quiet, and I would be left alone with poems to read and a couple acres of semi-tamed field and forest and garden to explore. I began noticing wildflowers I’d maybe seen before but never really looked at closely, finding monarch caterpillars munching leaves in a thick stand of milkweed (and, later, their chrysalises, then emerging butterflies), trying to identify the array of birdsong floating through the air and creating its own form of poetry.

One of the books in our small shop in Frost’s former barn – the National Audubon Society’s Field Guide to New England – became my go-to source for information on my new discoveries. At summer’s end, the Dartmouth College intern with whom I had shared docent duties presented the book to me as a parting gift.

The two children who were babies that summer are now 5-year-olds and have a little sister. We look at the book together often, revisiting familiar information and searching its pages to find the new plants and animals we’ve seen or heard. It’s fitting that the book came from a place where Frost lived, as the poet reportedly loved wandering through the local landscape, botanizing all the way.

Life certainly hasn’t become any less hectic since that summer at The Frost Place, with a growing work load of writing projects and three active kids. But as much as life becomes busier with children, it also grows more inquisitive. “Why?” and “How?” are favorite questions, asked endlessly, and we alter the pace of our lives to allow for discovery.

We wander through the fields and forests around our house often, in all kinds of weather, in every season. Moving at a child’s pace, I notice more than I would if I were running or cross-country skiing or biking solo. Looking at the landscape from a child’s perspective becomes a learning experience for all of us.

As we slow down we discover endless wonderful things: the petals of trout lilies curl backwards toward the sunlight, the white springtime blossoms of wood anemones are tinted pink on their backsides, the flowers of the small purple violets growing wild in the woods are shaped like butterflies.

In the spring we listen for the peepers calling from the nearby pond and creep as quietly as we can to the water’s edge; it is never quietly enough to catch one of the tiny frogs in the act of singing. In summer we watch the lupine plants grow higher each week until they burst in purple spikes that fill the back field, and we know where the best stashes of wild blackberries are. In fall, we look for signs of bear along the trail that meanders through the old apple orchard. The tracks through new snow in winter tell us which animals have passed by recently, and we can tell where the red squirrels like to eat by the deep piles of pinecone scales beneath tall trees.

We still get caught up in the craziness of school and meetings, t-ball and swimming lessons, paying the bills and buying the groceries and tending to the endless piles of laundry. But we take the time, especially when things get crazy, to change pace. Change is good, so the saying goes; variety is the spice of life.

A version of this essay appears in this week’s Record-Littleton.