Dirge of Summer

I forgot to make my annual "first cicada!" post. It was early this week - Monday, I think. Rather late in the year, but then so was the first spiral in the Gulf, which is the other yearly sign that mighty Summer's power is beginning to ebb.

The kids will come back on Monday. I'm not ready. I'm never ready. This year, I know it will be all right anyway. I'll be ready by Tuesday, and we never get anything done on the first day, anyway. I think I remember knowing it would be all right anyway on my second and fifth years, too.

*sigh* Ten years. Ten years watching the first signs of the death of summer, seeds in hand. Our profession plants at the beginning of harvest-time and harvests at the end of planting-time.

In two more years I will have paid my self-perceived debt. Then what? Do I stay? Move to another school? Go back to grad school and finish a doctorate? Something else?

I'll figure it out. I have time. On Monday, I meet the Hundred And Five for the tenth time, and the first.

Dirge of Summer

I forgot to make my annual "first cicada!" post. It was early this week - Monday, I think. Rather late in the year, but then so was the first spiral in the Gulf, which is the other yearly sign that mighty Summer's power is beginning to ebb.

The kids will come back on Monday. I'm not ready. I'm never ready. This year, I know it will be all right anyway. I'll be ready by Tuesday, and we never get anything done on the first day, anyway. I think I remember knowing it would be all right anyway on my second and fifth years, too.

*sigh* Ten years. Ten years watching the first signs of the death of summer, seeds in hand. Our profession plants at the beginning of harvest-time and harvests at the end of planting-time.

In two more years I will have paid my self-perceived debt. Then what? Do I stay? Move to another school? Go back to grad school and finish a doctorate? Something else?

I'll figure it out. I have time. On Monday, I meet the Hundred And Five for the tenth time, and the first.