back to school

I’ll admit it — I’m a sucker for this time of year.

I love all the sweaters, pumpkin spice, and colored leaves.
But it’s more than that.

I’m talking about Back to School.
A neat tidy desk. New pens, new pencils, crisp clean notebooks with no coffee stains or dinged corners, pages and pages of bright white paper just waiting to be filled, and multi-colored sticky notepads.

It’s finally here in all it’s glory.

There’s something magical about it — including the fact that even though I’m not quite sure how it happened, my online shopping cart was somehow filled with newTiconderoga black pencils (the absolute best!), a scrumptious new daily planner, and some nifty stickers to go with it. 😉

And just in case a box filled with back to school goodies isn’t good enough, these days my Facebook feed is filled with pictures of smiling kids all decked out for their first day of school finery. Their faces reflect all the hopes and dreams of a new school year. It’s a new time, a new year filled with learning and new adventures.

That’s another reason I love Back to School — it’s the second New Year of the year!

After a long, hot summer, it’s a welcome reminder to hit the reset button.
To restart the clock.

I’ve come to depend on this Second New Year of Back To School for its ability to help me refocus.

It’s like when I’m taking a picture and — Presto! — the image is suddenly sharp and crisp, but then I move the lens a bit too far and the image once again turns fuzzy.

Then I have to dial it back so things come back into focus.

Isn’t that a good metaphor for life?

Sometimes I take pictures and realize the foreground thing I originally wanted to capture isn’t really that important. Instead, I want to focus on what’s in the background — what’s farther away.

Sometimes the opposite is true. Sometimes I get so caught up in focusing on things in the distance that I’ve totally missed what’s right in front of my face.

Back to School time is the perfect time for dialing your life back into focus and righting the course of a year that may have run a bit off the rails.

Happy New Year! Again!

I love back to school time of year. There’s just something about a the fresh boxes of pens, pencils, and paper, the big bins filled with folders decorated with cute kittens and puppies, stacks of spiral notes, and brand new erasers in all sorts of fun shapes.

But it’s more than just “new stuff” that makes me happy, it’s what it represents. A fresh start, unlimited potential, new opportunities for growth and learning.

It’s like the whole year is that spiral notebook. It’s totally empty, and we can create whatever kind of fresh, exciting story we want to fill its pages.

It might be a science story with new discoveries about circuits, transistors, and capacitors. It might be a business plan where the seeds of a new venture are written out for the first time. It might be a story about history (our own or someone else’s) where battles, regardless how small or large, were fought and lessons were learned. It might be a story about creativity itself — a short story…the very first short story you’ve ever written.

It’s all out there.

There have been no tears because the story problem problem just won’t work out right. There have been no arguments about which priority is the most pressing. There have been no kitchen disasters that began as glittering Pinterest dreams that transformed into stinky, charred remains with the smoke alarm announcing the failure in earshot.

So I’m taking a few moments to inhale the smell of just sharpened pencils and touch their pointy tips. I’m shopping during the week…when everyone else is at work and the aisles at Staples and Target aren’t full.I’m not fretting about what lies ahead.

I’m content to show myself a little grace and mercy, enjoying the mid-year new year.