Lunchbox

Fresh red grapes, Luna bar (S’mores), lemonade, celery sticks with peanut butter, napkin (folded nicely), cheddar goldfish, and water for recess…

….and a note that says how proud we are, how excited, how amazing she is…

Walking to school, holding hands, we three. Sun just kissing the treetops.

io in a handmade red dress sprinkled with tiny flowers and white socks and chinese slippers covered in happy cherries….Lily in a pink tee from Japan with cat and mouse connected by a thin black line…blue jeans, white leather sneakers with no laces (“hey, mom, my shoes are so much more comfortable like this!”)…passing the tall, wild flowers of summer, crossing over the faded forest green bridge, looking down into a ditch devoid of water but full of possibilities….up the hill, passing the parked cars and sleeping houses….the crossing guard holding her giant neon orange stop sign, walking inside the white lines, up the cement steps next to the newly cropped bushes…..there’s the school garden, the school flag…tinging against its metal pole… walking beneath the overhang and through the doors and down the hall….there’s the water fountain…into the cafeteria for morning assembly…excitement flying everywhere, the chitter chatter of voices and laughter and goodbyes…

lily’s off, over to her new classmates, io not so eager to be left behind….i sit on the cool cement floor and meet her classmates (cezanne,
evan, gena….)…we walk down the hall and io excitedly points out a spiders web, attached to an outside garden window, chock full of eggs in a small brown bag…we stare and stare and ooh and aah….

down to her classroom…she already knows the way….pulling out her water bottle and putting it in its proper spot…trying to hang her backpack on an already crowded rack…moving scooby doo so her pink pack has a space….walking in to say good morning to her fresh faced teacher….children in a circle; oh, everywhere: color and numbers and letters and bugs and books and toys and words and new beginnings and the thrill of filling minds with endless knowledge….

i leave a note on a hallway mural of butcher paper and colored markers….messages from moms and dads and sisters and brothers to the kindegartners to say “be brave” and “we love you!” and “oh, the places you will go!” and i write io’s name with a heart inside the “o” and
sign it from all of us, how much we love her.

lily, this is your year! this is the time of your life.
io…you will climb new heights and share more insight into the wonders of your mind.

my sweetpeas, my girls, my loves.