on excitement

Today, as I carefully set out my outfit for back to school tomorrow, it was very clear to me that I am turning into my mother, a woman who irons a week's worth of her school outfits every Sunday afternoon with Catholic precision, and who starts packing for vacations at least a week before the departure date. And there's something really comforting about this fact, the inherited sense of excitement played out in organization and preparation, attention to the details of even the most mundane.

My syllabi are finished, my copies are being run at Kinkos, and now all of a sudden I'm feeling those familiar flutters that can only mean school is starting again. It brings me back to myself at five years old, awake early and dressed at 4am, clutching the Crayola briefcase my mom had packed the night before with pencils and crayons, and an eraser that smelled like a factory of glittery Strawberry Shortcake dolls. That was 22 years ago. Not much has changed.