School Bells
Copyright (c) 1995, Andee SoRelle
All Rights Reserved



                School Bells
              by Andee SoRelle


Even as I roast sitting in my stultifyingly hot car, and watch the grass
in my yard crisp in the sun, I can't help but notice it is September and
school has started.  The beginning of the school year would be much
enhanced by crisp autumn days and leaves that are falling because of
fall and not because the tree they fell from needs water.  Yet, as I
breathe in the hot air, I can still smell that first day of school smell. 

Each building I attended classes in had the same smell; at least it did
on the first day anyway.  That sort of musty, closed books, chalk and
wooden desks, sneakers in the locker smell.  Even now, opening a used
book in a store or opening a closet left closed for too long, I get a
whiff of that schoolhouse smell and I am transported to those first few
days.  The first days of school before the hard work started more surely
signified the beginning of something for me, than even New Year's Day. 

In the few weeks before the first day (which used to routinely be after
Labor Day and not before it in this reformed educational world we are
living in) my mother would take me clothes shopping and I would come
away with a few outfits she loved, some I hated, some I could stand and
one great ensemble we could both agree on.  That would be the skirt and
shirt I would shrug into on that first shining day. 

Mom would brush my hair, plaiting it into the two pigtails I had
requested instead of the one she preferred.  I would take my metal
lunchbox painted in red plaid, my big chief tablet, my huge, shiny green
pencil and make the three block walk to my elementary school.  On the
way I would pass and join other friends.  We would giggle in our
first-day nervousness and smile broadly pointing out the gaps where our
teeth had exited. 

We would arrive at the big metal doors, ushered in by our teachers and
shown the way to our classroom for the year.  Of course, we already knew
where the room was and which kindly but stern woman would be teaching
us.  We would spend the whole day receiving our new textbooks, carefully
writing our names in the front and folding the free slipcovers around
the cardboard bindings.  I would breathe deeply the smell of those
books, a smell that would fade as the year passed and I grew accustomed
to it again. 

We would wiggle in our chairs a lot; having been free to run and squirm
all summer, we were not used to this stillness.  We would look at each
other to see what had changed over the summer, and who had joined the
class; and who had left.  We would revel in that first day, because we
knew that the time for school fun would be over and school work would
begin. 

As I grew, the first day of school remained a beginning for me.  In the
crisp autumn air, putting fresh covers on new school books, I felt the
promise of a new year.  Much like ancient man who worshipped the fall
harvest as an important time, I was reborn each September; ready to
venture forth on the adventure that was learning.  I haven't begun a new
school year since 1991; yet, I still feel that fresh potential for my
life each fall.  More than the resolve that people greet January first
with, I greet the impending cool and plummeting leaves with promises of
good things in my coming year. 

No one should stop learning, so now, my new year begins not with days
spent in dusty classrooms distracted by the sun shining through chalk
clouds; but with the desire to experience and achieve more.  Each brisk
day brings the joy in my life in sharper focus.  New and wonderful
things happen to me all the time.  I wait for those events with pencil
sharpened, lunchbox packed and my new skirt neatly ironed.