On the Way to a Garden

The morning air crackled with the energy of pending events. Big things were happening this Monday. A new order was being established and futures hung in the balance. In Moscow? No, here. Nicole was starting school.

I realize it is probably not a happening of cosmic importance that this dark-eyed little girl chose a pretty blue dress with an imprint of Ariel the mermaid on it and set off to kindergarten with 55,000 others in the L.A. Unified School District.

But because she is my very good friend, I find it of vast significance. I mean, how often do we begin great adventures such as this, finally reaching the end of the corridor called infancy and crossing the threshold of a doorway that leads to tomorrow? How many firsts of this magnitude can there be?

It is a ritual not to be taken lightly. Even the brushing of one’s teeth assumes an aura of significance when matters of consequence fire the day. The selection of a dress must be cautiously undertaken, much as Ariel herself anguished over the decision to reject the sea for love.

Dolls placed in a row on their special shelves had to be touched and reassured that this abandonment was temporary, the little girl would return. The toy piano had to be played once more, its bell-chime caught in that space in memory where all good things are kept.

And then Nicole, with her shiny hair and hesitant smile, had to set off in the mists of a Monday morning, stepping through that hole in the fog where everything mysterious exists. It was school time.

“We forget what a scary time it is,” school board member Roberta Weintraub was saying. I called her to ask what kindergarten was all about.

“It involves the whole big trip of getting there and of the mother letting go. It’s a major parting, a goodby to the mama as the most important part of life.”

Goodby is sometimes difficult to say. We cling to the familiar with the tenacity of a pit bull and let go only when we realize there is nothing left to do but move on. Goodby, easy mornings. Goodby, pressureless days. Hello, tomorrow.

Having completed her own ritual of goodby, Nicole went off to kindergarten with sleepy ebullience. So did her friends Jessica, Samantha, Alison and all the others who, like my very good friend, were biting back whatever trepidation they might have felt for the greater glory of high adventure.

Soldiers at war never marched so bravely as children striding off to school.

I had hoped for a morning of serenity to mark this milestone. But even as Nicole bustled about to prepare for the future, a television set behind her was reporting a return to the past. Mikhail Gorbachev had been brought down by exponents of an archaic system. Destabilization was the order of the day. The world was wondering what would happen next.

Nicole stood in the doorway and looked back once more. “Well,” she said, “‘see you later.” Her mom held one hand, her daddy the other. And I recalled fleetingly how I had held her daddy’s hand on a first day of school a long time ago.

“Goodby, Nicole,” I said.

“What do you hope for the kindergarteners?” I asked teachers and administrators. The house had settled into silence as I talked on the phone. The dolls smiled from their shelves. The kittens slept.

“That they’ll learn to share,” one said.

“That they’ll develop social skills,” another said.

“That they’ll love school and learning,” a third said.

“It should be a beautiful experience,” Norma Durazo told me. She’s a community relations adviser for the district. “It’s a time to get to know their world in a safe and nurturing environment.”

Roberta Weintraub asked, “Who was it that said ‘Everything I ever knew I learned in kindergarten’? That’s probably still true.”

“Kindergarten will stay with them the rest of their lives,” Durazo said. “Some say academic skills ought to be learned there, like numbers and the alphabet. Others say only social skills should be taught in kindergarten.

“But all agree that the kindergarten teacher may be the most important teacher they’ll ever have.”

Kindergarten is a German word meaning children’s garden. I wondered what the garden would hold for Nicole. The television set continued to play, its sound muted. Tanks rolled silently through the streets of Moscow, crowds gathered, fists shook in soundless rage.

Must every milestone be marked with calamity? Does nothing ever change? I looked outside. Nicole was long out of sight. The hole in the fog had closed behind her. I sat pondering the morning.