Stars Beyond a Mountain
I have a friend named Travis who began his first day of school this week.
He strode out the door of his house in a Batman T-shirt, new hiking shorts and electric-blue sneakers that glow in the dark. A G.I. Joe lunch box was clasped firmly by the handle.
“Where you headed?” I joked as we walked down Chelsea Street on a morning as sweet as honey in tea.
“School!” Travis said proudly, holding his arms out and veering up on a lawn like a jet soaring through the brilliant cerulean sky. There was the aroma of freshly mowed grass in the air.
“How do you feel about that?” I said, hurrying to keep up with the jet.
“Funny,” Travis said. Then he added, “Oh me, oh my.”
“Why do you feel funny?”
“Because I’m going to have fun!”
The jet soared around a rose bush and paralleled the sidewalk again.
“I see. It’s fun so you feel fun-ny. That makes sense.”
“Sure,” Travis said.
School for the Castaic District began Thursday. The rest of L.A. County goes back next week; more than a million students marching like an army of hope and anguish through doors that lead beyond the looking glass.
“The raft of knowledge,” a Hindu philosopher said, “ferries the worst of us to safety.”
The raft edged up to the door of my grandson’s kindergarten class and stopped. His jet circled the field and landed.
The journey had begun.
Excitement was in the air when Travis awoke that morning. The first day of school is no small thing. Mt. Everest awaited, and the stars beyond the mountain.
Daring, you see, is no longer limited to climbing mountains. Time has altered the nature of metaphors.
But was it so long ago that my own children were going off to their first day of school, when the space age was young? It doesn’t seem so, but the years collapse in hindsight.
I remember the look on my son’s face the blustery day he strode to the great adventure.
He walked from the house and paused, gazing back at toys scattered on the front lawn. His eyes said goodby to infancy more poignantly than words could ever express.
He knew that nothing would be the same anymore.
It was that way with Travis. He inspected his play yard like a general bidding farewell to an army. He said goodby to his dog Chopper and to the kitten, Cream. He peeked into his fort and patted his slide set.
“What do you expect from today?” I asked as he got ready.
“Oh, nothing,” he said.
“Well, what would you like to do in school?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
He smiled slightly. It was a game.
“OK,” I said, “then what will you eat for lunch?”
“Nothing on crackers,” Travis said, laughing. It had the sound of wind chimes on the summer air. Then he added, suddenly realizing, “I won’t be eating at home.” The laughter faded.
“All right,” the teacher said, “everyone line up for name tags. Name tags, everyone!”
Her name tag said she was Miss Prescott.
She was maybe 25. Were my teachers in their 20s when I started school? Probably. But everyone seems old when you’re 5. Now everyone seems young.
“Step lively,” she said.
Stephanie got in line and so did Christopher and Zachary, Albert and Cory, Elsa and Antonio and Ryan and John . . .
Travis inspected the room. He opened drawers and looked in cabinets. He checked out a play stove and studied his name at a table.
“I like it,” I whispered.
“You’re not going to school,” he whispered back.
Well, true. But I still liked it. I liked it because the class was bilingual, and a blend of language is the future of the world.
I liked it because there was youth in the room and hope in the air.
Susan, Nadine, Patricia, Jose, Ashley, Erica, Marcos, Darlene, Rozendo . . .
I realize that a small school in suburbia is not a microcosm of America. There is privilege here and reason for optimism. That isn’t true everywhere. Hope is rare in the ghettos, and purchased with trepidation in the barrios.
That might change someday, but I don’t know that it will.
“All right,” Miss Prescott said, “time for class!”
The mothers and fathers hugged their kids. The blue door of Room 2 began to close. But before it did, I glimpsed a sign on the wall. It said, “Goodby, summer! Hello, fall!” Adios, verano! Hola, ontono!
And I realized that another summer was fading and another passage had been achieved. Travis, the infant, was gone, and a little boy was reaching for the stars.
Oh me . . . oh my.
