The end of summer

The great weather that we had in San Francisco for the past week cannot last for very long since it is summer. The weather has shifted back to what is oft miscredited as a Mark Twain quote about the coldest winter I ever spent.. was a summer in San Francisco, was used by one of the respected brahmains at Bean There to characterize the weather to a friend. Even if the quote is off, it is the truth about this city that summer here is much more elusive than the beautiful springs and autumns that grace this place with cycles of sunny days, followed by three days of showers, then crisp sunny days with the clouds breaking apart for the middle of the day each and every day. Since today is really the last day I will be in the City before I have to report to my classroom on August 15, the weather has offered a great boundary for the end of summer.

True I will be on vacation next week in Boston with my son to visit my dad, but since this involves travel, site seeing and some attention to the needs of others, it is clearly a different experience than wondering what day it is because the only things I have had to do since arriving back home after our Turkey trip that ended four weeks ago, has been to wonder where I was going to drink coffee every day. Life is rough.

The life of a teacher is different from most other professions in that summers never end throughout our professional career. Principals and many other staff members in our district enjoy similar stretches of summer as well. This is true for most educators, and that other segment of the population, the student, who enjoy this same luxury of travel, summer camps, summer classes or just hanging out. Travel is beautiful, and memorable, and camp seems timeless, but inactivity should not be underestimated either. Disassociating from duty and responsibilities in general has a therapeutic quality that cannot be overlooked. The sense of self seems to loose its sharpness as one day stretches into a week and the weeks into a month, that I start to slip out of the conditioning that comes along with standing in front of 25 kids for six hours a day, five days a week. I don't have to explain myself over and over again; I don't need to answer questions about what I am going to do to anyone (except maybe my wife when she wants me to run some errands); I don't need to think about what I am going to wear, or if my hair is sticking up funny, or if I can skip a day without shaving. I don't need to impress anyone at a cafe, nor am I so concerned with what the barista does behind the counter except make sure the coffee is good. Contrast this level of concerns with the life of a teacher in a middle class school district. Being a presence for students, parents, and for teachers (as a union rep) is hard work. On top of that, I need to prepare activities, presentations, coordinate dvd selections, find reading materials, and make sure that all of my students are working to their potential in their own differentiated learning style, so I know (sometimes magically) that they are learning to think critically and understand what they need to do in order to be successful. In contrast, right now, I am wondering if I should add a little more half and half to my coffee - and that is about all I have worried about for the last 15 minutes.

So, today is really the last day of what I will call the lingering summer. After about two weeks I realized that I am finally, biologically relaxed. At that point I started to wonder if I should focus on something from day to day, have some activity that enriches my life with a narrative, with meaning. At that point, this year, I think I thought about that for about a week. I started to research and construct materials for a better Roman History unit for this year. I cleaned my desk and the dining room table. I emptied my dressers of old clothes. I smog checked and registered the truck. I experimented with several different mixtures for paper marbling, having taken 2 four hour classes in Istanbul this summer. I went on a diet before my friends came to town. 


This past week, my friends, Terri and Lorin came to San Francisco for an entire week. I walked around with them for several days, taking them to some of the places that they wanted to see, sure to get them to walk through various neighborhoods that are great areas of this city to see. We had a great time, except when I walked them to death a couple of times. We are not getting younger. Even my feet hurt one day. But I love this city; I love being a tourist in this city visiting those parts of town, and those cafes and bookstores that I oftentimes have little time to visit and linger in during the school year. So, I thank Terri and Lorin for coming to San Francisco, so I could be with friends, pay attention to their hopes for their visit and need to relax while running around everywhere in the city. It was great to interact with people on a daily basis, something that is often not required in the summer. More importantly, this was the longest stretch of time I have spent with both Terri and Lorin ever, and Terri since we went out together over 23 years ago. (We have remained great friends; she even introduced me to my wife and made her wedding dress).


As the school year quickly looms down on me, I have to remember this feeling of lack of purpose, free of responsibility and not having to deal with important details of life for the four weeks I had to linger this summer. Because, in a month, in September, when I have been teaching for two or three weeks, that feeling will quickly dissipate, and I surely will long for that feeling, only able to capture the summer's magic over a Saturday morning cup of coffee, as I watch the morning fog burn off, able to capture that sense of timelessness that is summer.