back to school

And so the summer draws itself to a close on a Sunday evening. I'm in the same building in the same city, wearing a Minnesota sweatshirt because it is sixty degrees. The warm weather will be back, but it's nice to cover up for a few hours. And wearing this shirt always makes me think of Kato. I could almost be back in the red living room of Highland, with my housemates, watching The Simpsons.

The summer is over, and I'm glad to both have had it and to let it go; it's been amazing, but also busy and exhausting in the strangest ways. There was a lot of family time, and a lot of writing and reading time, and a lot of thinking time--all good. But I think it might also be a relief to get back into a routine and turn most of that mental energy to answering e-mails and thinking about course calendars and talking about poems. Time to turn the focus outward.

Minnesota feels so close right now. I think it is because the B is here, and as I'm packing my bag for the morning I keep remembering, suddenly, that I am not alone here. I think it is because the Liz has been to visit recently, and when she was here we got to sit out back and eat cookies and drink coffee and marvel at Mexican chocolate gelato made with chipotle peppers and raspberries and just talk. I think it is because tomorrow I will return to a familiar building, know where to get my office supplies, not have to fight Blackboard or panic minutes before the first class of the day because I realize that I don't know how to properly read the school calendar. I will head back and have people there to greet, doors to knock on and peer my head around, books to sell back and an office that feels right. I think it is because my father, when he comes to visit like he did for a few days last week, arrives via car and not plane. I think it's because last night Jake walked through our door and we drank cans of beer and played records all night, and then this morning I went to bid him an emotional farewell and then realized that I would see him in a matter of days, that he lives an hour south of us now. It's wonderful to have these people here and so close again, but it also makes me think that it's the fall of 2006, and that we'll all run down to Pub for chips and dip and Rag Tops.

I thought in writing this that I'd find my point, some pithy way of getting a handle on missing old lives and simultaneously loving what this life is--because I do, and I do. But I'm four paragraphs in and nothing's floating to the surface. And I have been talking around this point for weeks.

So how about this: tomorrow morning I'll wake up early and drink my coffee and stand in front of a class for the first time in nearly three months. And it will be good to be back, and it will be indescribably lovely to have someone to ride home with.

Or, to look at another way--in the words of Jean, who wrote an e-mail today containing a line that made me giggle for twenty minutes:

Somebody needs to take August out back and put a fucking bullet in it.

Pithy. I like it.