It’s that time of year. Are you familiar? For some it’s unavoidable; for others an abandoned memory. But for those many in its midst, Maycember is a saturation such that, even if you’re not immersed in it yourself, you can watch or read about it online.
Before I write further, our word game. Friends, this is one that (on my end) writes itself. “Maycember” is the coinage of harried parents during May, describing activities and calendar items so constant that they evoke the equally busy month of December. Your job (I know you know already) is to create your own blended month and then, of course, tell us why you call it that.
Of course at work Maycember is unfolding all around me. Its force is somewhat delayed in our upper school, but this month students have been feeling it in the form of final projects and unit tests. For weeks we’ve been enjoying senior capstone presentations; this past week ended in days devoted to final exams. On Monday we enjoyed the Senior Walk followed by a senior awards ceremony, and in the coming week we’ll wrap up exams, celebrate the last day of school, and finally launch our seniors with a small handful of important events. Meanwhile, some of my colleagues have to duck out occasionally to catch their child in a class production of Hansel and Gretel or to give an interpretation of Horus or Bastet for Pharaoh Day.
Each of these is a not-to-be-missed milestone, carefully planned and prepared for. And yes, these and so many other events (field trips, Field Day, end-of-class parties, dance recitals, sports banquets) can make May feel like a whiplash marathon. Every week— even every day— presents with things parents, students, and teachers alike must send, bring or prepare, set up or clean up, or simply be on time for.
To be honest, I don’t remember May like this when I was a child, but maybe that’s because I was a child, one who didn’t keep a calendar but was merely reminded of things and then ferried to and fro. As for end-of-school activities, I only remember Field Day and a vague cognizance that it marked the school year winding down. I know that at some point we began counting. It was the end of fifth grade, I think, that found me standing next to my driveway after the bus had dropped me off, chanting “Six more days!” in its retreating noise. I doubt anyone heard me or even noticed, but the chanting gave me immense satisfaction at the time.
Here and there, some beleaguered mothers have talked with me about Maycember mayhem. Just last week it was the mother of four ages seven and younger, the smallest an infant clutching her mother’s blouse in a tight fist.
“It’s exhausting,” she said to me, and she unreeled the list of the upcoming week’s events. Each would require her presence and attention, and some her preparation in advance.
I understood and of course was sympathetic. It’s exhausting to be a parent of young children even on the best days, so of course the week (and month) ahead loomed formidable. In this context, I think it’s helpful to have videos like the one linked above so that we can remember to laugh at it. This kind of thing, too, seems wise, because there’s no way around it unless you decide to pull everyone out of school— and out of every other activity in life while you’re at it.
I vividly remember the building busyness of our children as they moved beyond grade school. Weekly soccer practice became daily; family dinners were undone by overlapping sports schedules, play practice, instrument recitals. I caught myself one day wanting to cancel it all or at the very least to wish it away. And then the arresting realization: it would all go away eventually, along with the children.
The downside of Maycember isn’t, to my mind, the busyness. It’s what the busyness does or has the potential to do: to obscure or eclipse May’s promise.
Maybe it was more noticeable when I was at grade school in a Pittsburgh suburb. Spring comes later there— later than it does in North Carolina, anyway. The classroom windows likely only stand open in the last few weeks of school, and the smallest breeze can bring it in.
“It” being what every child is— or should be— aware of: a sense of the widening freedom of the coming days, of not having to be somewhere or do anything. Of staying outside after dark playing flashlight tag, or swimming so late at the local pool that you’re there long after the pool lights come on. Days with your head in a book, your toes in the sand. Days (one can only hope) short on screens and long on wonder.
The May air that slipped into my grade school windows intimated as much, although I don’t remember how. But I knew what was coming.
This little edition of my newsletter is a one-off, just something I was thinking about that I wanted to write down. Nonetheless, feel free to respond in the comments below anyway: maybe your own thoughts on Maycember or the heady delight of end-of-school. Or respond to the word game. You know you want to.
In other news, we have a next book for our ongoing book-discussion-conversation on identity and Kierkegaard’s ideas in The Sickness Unto Death (on which, you may recall, I am writing a book)! We’ll be discussing Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, and you should read it because it’s a great story, well-written, and a classic. Go get the book, and pencil us in for conversation on Thursday, July 24.
Finally, I found a poem, because of course I did.
The High-School Lawn Gray prinked with rose, White tipped with blue, Shoes with gay hose, Sleeves of chrome hue; Fluffed frills of white, Dark bordered light; Such shimmerings through Trees of emerald green are eyed This afternoon, from the road outside. They whirl around: Many laughters run With a cascade's sound; Then a mere one. A bell: they flee: Silence then:-- So it will be Some day again With them, --with me. -Thomas Hardy, 1840-1928
Like I said, this is a one-off. Maybe I’ll send another newsletter on schedule this coming week, and maybe not, because it’s Maycember, don’t you know.
Thank you for reading!
With joy,
Rebecca
Droptober, the time of the semester when you realize you're going to get a terrible grade in Organic Chemistry
Febtigue. The time of year that homeschoolers everywhere hit a slump. They have not made the progress they hoped for. They think of changing curriculum. They dream of the big yellow school bus.