Matching Tracksuits

School is out. The list is complete. We begin the projects, great and small.

The same weeds that plague us plague everyone...

Spring has begun poking its head around the corner, hinting at what's to come with warm sunny days that have brought the yellow bells to bloom and encouraged the lawn to shoot up in a few spots. The blueberry bushes at the base of the driveway are already opening blossoms and whispering of the cobblers and preserves that K will be making in the coming weeks. Trees are budding, and soon the wisteria that hangs from the trees across from our house will start sharing its blue and white blooms. I've mowed once, and K has begun planning our spring planting.

We all begin thinking about the summer and our trip to Polska to celebrate Babcia's eightieth birthday -- it will be the first time we've ever gone back-to-back summers. My first year at the new school is coming to a close slowly (only one more quarter remaining), and since we'll be moving into our new building next year (though we keep hearing it will be ready by late April, I doubt it), it's like starting over a second year in a row.

That's the heart of spring: starting over -- the beginning of warmth, of evenings on the back deck with friends, of early-morning light that stretches into the late evening, of fresh. We brush off the malaise of the late winter (inasmuch as we have such a thing here in the south) and warm ourselves again.

Everything seems to be ending and beginning at the same time. The Boy is finishing middle school; the Girl is beginning college, truly learnings is rhythms. And next week, spring ends with temperatures falling to the twenties...

There's often a sense that gratitude and Monday are incompatible. There's a whole network of memes all suggesting the same thing: there's nothing positive about Monday. It's built, I suppose, on the assumption that, with the weekend complete, the best part of the week is behind us, and we have little to look forward to. But that assumption is, in turn, based on another assumption: that the fun weekend is superior to the business week day, and that Monday is the worst possible of the five workdays because it's waking up from the dream that was the weekend and returning us to the daily reality that seems to have less choice and more obligation. After all, one can choose to sleep in or to get up early on a Saturday morning; a Monday morning lacks the former and demands the latter. So what is there to be grateful for on a Monday?

I went to work, which means I have a job and can provide for my family. That's certainly something to be grateful for. My kids are (relatively) safe at school during the day: certainly not all parents have that same assurance. I woke up in a bed and will return to it: not everyone has that simple privilege. I get to work with some amazingly sweet (though predictably chatty -- middle schoolers are the same everywhere) students. The list could go on and on. We can literally find things all around us to be grateful for.

And I'm especially grateful that I don't have to write any more. It's not a job, not an obligation, and so I can tumble off to bed at 9:16.