Ghosts

I hate September, and any part of August that brushes up against it.  Growing up, I dreaded school starting, which is kind of funny for someone who went to get a Ph.D. 

For me, September always meant new classmates, new anxieties, like would I ever get off of Team Four in softball?  (Think “The Leper Colony” in Twelve O’Clock High.)  By October I had enough answers to know what to expect for the rest of the school year.  I valued unpleasant routine over uncertainty.  

Then grade school led to high school; a big September there, when I learned that it was better not to go to the john in E Wing.  And high school to college.  I didn’t even know about A/B stops on the subway; it was a good thing all trains stopped at DePaul University.  And college led to graduate school, where they forgot to tell me when school started, in part because they forgot I was enrolled for that Ph.D.

I drove Clare to school five days a week, for ten years starting in junior kindergarten.  That stopped in the September of freshman year high school, and I felt lost.  I did OK shipping her off to Elmhurst for college.  It was only a half-hour away, and I had four years of softball to look forward to.

Yesterday, we moved Clare into her apartment at Valparaiso University, where she’s going for a master’s in sports’ administration.  The house is empty now, save for memories ruined by one September or another.