Transitional

School year 2022 - 2023, my youngest child’s senior year, is underway; and although I’m not thrilled that summer is over, back to school and back to a more predictable routine is not such a bad thing. I won’t get to swim in the evenings anymore, but I also won’t be cooking dinner at 8:30 PM only to find that no one is planning to eat at home anyway. 

Last Thursday, I attended my very last MCPS Back to School Night. I almost skipped it altogether. Weather conditions were ideal for after-work swimming on one of the last pool nights of the year, and my son has only one teacher whom I had not met already. He is in the second year of his IB program and has most of the same teachers he had last year. The one exception is a teacher my older son had as a senior. So I wouldn’t have missed anything important. But I went because I’ve never missed a BTS night and it was likely the last time that I’d ever visit a classroom at Rockville High School. I’ll be back for band concerts, but I’ll probably never walk through the school again beyond the auditorium. 

As much as I hate back to school, I really like Back to School Night. The place was crackling with energy. Several of my son’s friends, who were volunteering as Ambassadors, greeted me as I passed them in the hallways. Band parents and baseball and swim parents waved and shouted hellos. The classrooms were spotlessly clean and colorful, decorated with posters and student art and homey little odds and ends. All of the classrooms were cheerful and welcoming and one or two were downright charming. I paid my Booster Club and PTSA dues. I avoided buying any more gosh-darn t-shirts and water bottles and car magnets. I slipped out before the last class period (this is my eighth year as a Rockville band parent, so I know the drill for music students) and escaped the parking lot before the mass exodus. It was rather a nice way to spend an evening. I’m a little sad that it’s the last one. It’s the last year, and I’m not ready. 

*****

According to the calendar, we still have about two weeks of summer remaining. But the calendar is wrong. Yesterday was Labor Day and the pool is closed for the season. When children are back in school and the pool is closed, summer is over, no matter the temperature. 

As much as I hate Labor Day and everything it stands for, it was kind of a perfect LDW, and Labor Day itself was delightful. The weather forecast was not promising, so I swam early in the day lest the threatened thunderstorms forced the pool to close early. At 3 or so, the sky darkened and the breeze picked up and I finished swimming and went home, thinking that this was it for the summer. And it was fine, really. 

The previous day, my neighbors and I had agreed that we’d meet at the pool pavilion on Monday at 5 for a slapdash, half-baked, no-rules potluck. No sign-ups, we agreed - we’ll just see what shows up, and that is what we’ll eat. We further agreed that the potluck would happen rain or shine and that if it was raining too hard to sit in the pavilion, then we’d move it to someone’s house. 

I came home and made some chicken, and although the sky was ominously heavy and gray, there was no rain. I wrapped up the chicken, grabbed some napkins and plasticware and a bucket of ice, and we all gathered under the pavilion for the last time this summer and ate what turned out to be a very good dinner. People showed up, as they say on the Twitter. People understood the assignment. We had more than enough food for everyone and we were able to feed the lifeguards and all the other random kids who were getting their last few minutes of summer at 6 PM even as cloudy skies and cool breezy temperatures reminded us that October is around the corner and winter is right behind it. 

We finished dinner and walked down to the pool deck to stand and watch the kids playing their last round of pool games until next May. And the pool looked cold and dank and gray. But then we adults decided that we also needed one last swim. Some of us had already brought suits and towels. Others ran home to change. And one by one, we slipped into the dark gray chilly water, for one final swim. The pool was a wide-open watery space, the lane ropes and  barrier ropes gone. 

For the last two weeks, the pool has been amateur hour, crowded with casual visitors who never bother with the pool until zero hour, when they suddenly realize that summer is almost over. But on Monday, the dilettantes and daytrippers were gone, and only the hardcore, dedicated pool rats remained and the rules no longer applied. Kids were jumping off the lifeguard chair into the deep end. Kids played football and basketball and water polo, all at once. And the handful of adults swam through and around them. It was a damn free-for-all. It was glorious.

But it was cold, and as it grew dark, the adults, myself included, were too chilled to continue. And so we exited the water, one by one, the way we came in, and we stood on the deck, wrapped in towels and hoodies, watching the kids wring every drop of fun out of summer's last few moments. And then, the whistle blew for the last time, and it was time to go. The sky, by then, was inky dark blue. The air was chilly and we could feel autumn. We could smell it.

*****

It's Friday now, and summer already seems ages ago. It's time for fall things, fire pits and brisk walks and jackets and Halloween candy and avoiding PSL. It's transition time.