Most reluctant month

SHARON MELNICER

"Pete, come on now, it's time to get up," I say. "You can't sleep in today."

"No, I don't want to get up. It's too early. I feel too tired to get up. I want to stay in bed. Go away and leave me alone."

"You can't stay in bed, Pete, honey. You have to get up to go to school. Today is the first day of a brand new year! All your friends are going to be there. You don't want to be late, do you?"

"I don't wanna go to school!" (Pete breaks into tears and protests further.) "My stomach hurts, my throat is sore, my nose is blocked and I have an eye-crossing headache. I'm too sick to go to school. I can't go because I'll throw up in class, maybe even pass out in the hallway. I'm not going to school. I don't have to go if I'm sick."

"Yes, Pete, sweetheart, you do have to go to school. You're the science teacher."

For years, August was the "reluctant" month, an unlikely word to describe a month, perhaps, but still the best one I can think of. When I was a teacher, September always made me gasp, apart from June, which was filled with joyous sighs of relief because of the spectre of the long, lazy, summer lying ahead, a treasure box of warm-weather dreams about to be opened for too brief a time.

September and June shared the common element of frenzy: too much to do in too little time, too many faces to link with too many names, too many forms to fill out and then to send in, too many boxes to check, too many lessons to prepare, especially if a last minute timetable change had me teaching a new course like quantum physics on Sept. 2, despite the fact that I had earned a master's degree in English literature and prided myself on knowing all the obscure mysteries of William Wycherley's Restoration-period dramas. Aside from that deliberate administrative oversight, the physics teacher was going on maternity leave and I had one too many prep. periods anyway. Thus, after teaching high school English for 20 years, now I was lucky to keep one chapter ahead of the kids in the quantum physics text, with a lot of help from my friends on faculty who were smart enough to get science degrees.

September and school were inseparable for me, in speech and in thought. Like a Broadway actor with agonizing, stomach-churning stage fright, I lay sleepless every night in late August, knowing that sleep would be impossible as the bustle of September consumed every available hour. I yearned for gentle October, the month when nameless faces in September would turn into 245 distinct, unique personalities whom I recognized and greeted in the corridors every day, the overwhelming load of paperwork would move down a notch to merely "daunting" and quantum physics would prove to be kind of interesting, despite having to teach it by the seat of my pants.

Wonderful, fragrant October and the smell of burning leaves, the crunch of them underfoot, the veritable rainbow of dazzling fall colors, the crisp, little kisses on your nose announcing the coming of winter. October came like a cold drink of water to a parched throat.

Out of the classroom for the fifth September now, I don't look enviously or sadly at my active colleagues anymore who have had reluctant August to deal with and still have to get through September. But I'll always have a special place in my heart for the 10th month, gentle October, even though frenzy – or reluctance – can apply to any part of the year.

Sharon Melnicer is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

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