Welcome to May
I’ve always liked May. Break out the Birkenstocks, but it’s still cool enough to wear my jeans without being hot. The days get longer, and we shed coats, get out the hammock, and dream of the beach. May means kids’ baseball games and minor league games and plans for which Major League teams we will see this year...or, this year, it means choosing favorite Korean baseball teams and tuning in to ESPN to watch them play. Because I am in education, May also carries a promise: the end of this season is approaching, and we begin to say good-bye to people and places and routines in preparation for the freedom and rest of summer.
This year, the weather hasn’t let me down, but all the traditional year-end rituals are either gone or are so very changed that they don’t provide the same feeling. We said good-bye to all these things in March without full consciousness that we were doing it, carried along on a cresting wave that still hasn’t broken. I dreamed last night that I was in a crowd in charge of students, and suddenly I realized that none of us were wearing masks, that we were too close together, and that I didn’t know what to do. How could I have forgotten the pandemic? What do I do now?
My husband says my dreams like this are largely about control, which figures for me. But I think they are also about being stuck between longing for a routine that isn't here, and being a little afraid to return to it.
This is the last week of online school for my kids. I know they will be glad to finish their school work, but that work has given them a routine, a way to connect with their friends and teachers, and a sense of normalcy. So I think one thing that we will do this week for all of us is to have a closing ceremony.
I got this idea from The Lazy Genius. She talks many times on her podcast (see here and here for examples) about the need for opening and closing ceremonies around holidays or any times of transitions to help our minds reset. These ceremonies can look like anything that works for you and your family. One suggestion she gives is going out to dinner the night before school starts, which gives time together as a family in a fun atmosphere to prepare for change, and it gives a recognizable ending--summer isn’t over until you go out on this night for burgers.
I’ve always thought this was a nice idea, but it’s never been something I prioritized, probably because I’ve always been moving too quickly. Who has time to make traditions like this when everything is so busy? Beginnings and endings usually have me running ragged with one more program to attend, or recital to rehearse, or test to take. Plus, this sort of ceremony is so very simple, and my plans can tend toward the complex, with multiple checklists and too much cleaning.
This summer though, a closing ceremony is something I think we need to do, and simple, mercifully, is what we’ve got. The plan isn’t outrageous: I’ll make their favorite cookies for ice cream sandwiches, and we can have a picnic on the dining room table, covered in our picnic blanket and lots of the best junk food. We’ll say good-bye together to things we will miss from this school year and make a list of fun things we want to do this summer with the current restrictions as guidelines. We’ll post the list on the fridge, where we can see it and remember it, and plan our new summer around things we want to do instead of things we can’t do.
None of this is especially difficult or exciting, and it may not be the entire end we need in this season of transition. But I hope it will be a place to start in helping us all say good-bye to what is done and begin, with clear eyes and hopeful hearts, to dream a new dream for what we can be and do now, in the season we have.
