I look upon him and I can't believe the passage of time.  I can't believe how we've arrived here in this moment where I am taking him to learn about high school.  I can't believe he's taller than me and his feet are the size of a yeti's and he's ready to shake off the childishness of elementary school and enter through the doors that will pave the way to his future.

We walked into that building on Thursday night and it still smelled like 1996 and I felt young and giddy and proud as I led him down hallways that hold the echo of my memory - walls and walls of scars that tell the tales of generations.

I found myself there - in the history classroom where Ms. Rowntree let us watch Grease on our lunch break - in the english classroom where Mr. Abel played Beatle records and let me learn my own way - in the math classroom where I wanted to cry but Mr. Mengers told me not to give up - against the locker with a squirrel painted on it where I kissed the boyfriend who became my husband...

People say you couldn't pay them to go back to those years but I think I would go for free.  Sure, I had my fair share of teenaged angst and cried my broken heart out behind the out-of-bounds stairwell but it was also a time of great discovery and expectation and thrilling fun.  I would go back knowing I had to appreciate my youth, that I was beautiful, that life would never be as easy as it was the days I walked those halls....

left: my friends and I hanging out in the hallway   right: me and the other editors of the school poetry magazine

1998 - high school graduation

As we sat through the presentation by the principal and guidance counselors I felt thrilled that my boy - the little Zander I rocked and sang to through colic and nightmares - would soon leave his own mark on the same place I left mine and that years from now, perhaps he too will gaze on his own child with warm memories of the great moments he found in that old building.