Grabbing Time

Twenty Minutes Inside The Last Day of School

One of Julia Cameron’s tools for writing is to “grab time”. The idea is to grab time to write instead of wait for time to write. Benefits are twofold: you lay tracks for your writing piece and your mood improves.

Here’s a twenty minute grab from inside Middle School on the last day, events unadulterated:

There is a wafting fish smell coming from the 7th Grade hallway and it makes me wonder what rare treasure got dug up during locker clean out. I can’t remember any of my own last, or first, days of middle school and certainly not in detail, but I do remember being 7th Grade Library Helper and taking it oh so seriously. I checked those books out with the utmost care, ensuring every name and due date stamp was in place before I would desensitize the book bind. It was the absolute best, possessing such power over the lending process. I should channel some of that vigilance right now. It was savage, borderline hostile. 

An 8th Grader just filled her backpack with tiny water balloons. I’m too tired to deal with this. I somehow can’t care about it and she knows by the look in my eyes as I saunter right past without uttering a single word, complicit as they come. Maybe deep down I don’t stop her or say anything because I know who she’s going for later and it’s about time he gets his day. Mental note: try to be there for that. 

That group of students over there has been hugging and crying since 8:15 AM which now puts them at just over three hours. That is not anything I should get in the middle of.

I shouldn’t get in the middle of it because deep down, just a little bit, I am sad, too. I’ve done this enough to know that I will never see almost all of these 8th graders again and I am admittedly fully endeared to them. To those in that group anyway. If I start to cry I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to stop and I am just not willing to put myself in that kind of light here, I still need people to take me seriously. Plus I am pretty sure I am perimenopausal and I see a very slippery slope.

Okay, back to business. I need to find the art teacher so he can sign his final rating sheet. 

Found him. He’s frosting a cake and asked me to come back in twenty minutes, his hands were covered in make-shift piping bags.

Wait. 

We really couldn’t order a cake that was pre-piped? We really sourced the art teacher? 

“Ms. Sinnott, can I change out of my uniform?”

“Sorry, no. School isn’t over yet. Why do you need to change?”

“Because as soon as that bell rings, I’m headed straight to the pool and I want to be ready.”

That’s so fun. I should let him change. But no. Too bad for him I am channeling 7th Grade Library Helper and that savage shrew is not letting anyone out of uniform on her watch. 

That, and I want the first piece of that cake, so I need to go.

Happy Summer!