First Day of School

The first week of school for the boys has gone really well. Remarkably well. The transition to Lexington has been smooth. They miss Mammaw pretty badly, but they are making it. The amazing thing has been school. Generally, one or both of the boys will cling to me, say they don’t want to go, beg to not have to, whatever. So far, none of that. They run right in. The school has done a really good job of making them welcome, of taking care of them.

But then there’s also this. The boys have gotten a big dose of “community,” the word I exorcised from my vocabulary as too trendy and void of meaning. It’s coming back, and the boys get it without knowing the word—that strikes me as important, not needing the word, having the reality. At the end of the first day, as we crossed the street, they saw Roz. Then Ruben. Then Charlotte, Melissa, Alice, Andrew and Brent. They were really excited to think that they had so many people close by.

But before we crossed the street from the school to the church, John was holding Joe’s hand and he pointed diagonally across the street and said, “Look, Joe-Joe. That’s 12th Street.” And he began to name the people who lived there: “Laura, Jessica, Fire Queen, Our Meg, Peter, Jackie…” They know they are surrounded by people they love and who love them.

There’s something to their experience. Too often, if we use a word, we think we have understood something. And maybe we have. But better the experience of community than understanding it.