First day of school

All day long I have been expecting something, not sure what, but it's the first day of school, and even though I am grown up, part of me still yearns for an organized backpack and blank notebooks.  

Growing up, shopping for school supplies was a yearly ritual.  In elementary school it was for a new pencil box, pink erasers, composition notebooks, and number #2 pencils. (Who bought the #1s and #3s? Do they really even exist?)  

Every elementary school classroom was equipped with a pencil sharpener that sprayed woody shavings everywhere. Each year, on the first day, all the students would take their brand new, yet unchewed yellow pencils and grind them to perfect points.  Over time, their nibs would get soft from writing and be snapped off in frustration. As the weeks of school went by, filled with cupcakes, gluey art classes and Halloween parades, those pencils would grow shorter and shorter, until you could hide them in a clenched fist.

In middle school, I graduated to mechanical pencils which made a decisive "click click" when you pressed the eraser for more lead.  They were black plastic with neon pocket clips.  The extra lead came in a clear plastic case that was deliciously small and efficient.  Eventually, I switched to writing in pen, preferring a bold blue Bic, pressing so hard on my paper you could feel the letters come through on the back side like braille.

I first started collecting pens in high school. I liked garish ones with sparkles, plumes, and lights. At university the obsession continued and I managed to buy every color of Jelly Roll on the market.  I remember trying to re-read my class notes but couldn't because the runny pink ink and my cursive writing changed words into something that looked like a lie detector test. I still have these pens in my desk, lying in wait for some spectacular rainbow-colored project--some day-when I have time- perhaps in retirement I will make sparkly cards for my grandchildren. . .

Computers, and their progression into modernity, hold no such nostalgia for me. My family had an Apple and then another and then something else. I had a Dell in college and then a overheated Compaq laptop.  I have no love for them. I do not long for their antiquated screens and myriad viruses.

Despite my waxing poetic, as a child I was never ready to go back to school. The preparations for the first day were exciting, but I dreaded the end of summer vacation.  Looking back now, I only wish that my life could be so simple.