September, 1959

September, 1959

It was the first day of school in September of 1959. I had followed the path that began in the back yard of my neighbor’s house across the street; the path went down a hill and across a swale to where it climbed a gentle incline and finally emerged out onto the grass playground of the Bower’s Elementary School in Manchester, Connecticut. I was entering the fourth grade.
 
Where the path ended at the playground there was a small grass stair where one would have to step up to reach the level of the playground. Across the expanse of the grass schoolyard, the long brown brick shape of the school loomed in the distance on top of the hill. On that warm and sunlit morning, I turned and sat down on that grass step and bawled like a baby, crying my eyes out in despair over the loss of summer, and what appeared to be the interminable process of grades and schooling that lay like an infinite dark path stretching out before me into my future. My time, my precious personal time, seemed so limited and fleeting when held up to life’s endless obligations, burdens, and societal necessities.
 
Last night I awoke at three in the morning and, despite all my efforts, could not get back to sleep. It was a September night in the year 2007. I lay in the dark of my bedroom and when I closed my eyes, it was 1959 and I was nine years old again, sitting on that grass step on a sunlit September morning before the first day of school, feeling the same despair. Only this time there were no tears.