The Sweet Smell of Loose-Leaf

Blame this one on John Tesh.

Earlier in the week I had a thought that this was just going to be a straightforward column on school supplies. ‘Tis that time of year, I know you’re well aware, for the run on pencils, notebooks, backpacks and giant glue sticks.

I was preoccupied with the experience of shopping for all the gear, with amassing shopping bags full of fresh stuff that would set up my little ones for scholastic greatness.

Remember what it was like to get your own school supplies, about the promise their newness held? I loved unwrapping the plastic shrink wrap from around a brand-new packet of loose-leaf paper, the smell of the paper held such optimism. I spent hours getting everything organized, deciding which colored tab I’d assign to each subject, sliding that little folded piece of paper into the colored plastic holder.

The year was like a red carpet of potential rolling out in front of me. New supplies mean possibility and promise.

Shopping now, I was excited for my kids’ excitement, and how they might feel that same kind of anticipation for what the year would hold.

(Truthfully, there was an itty-bitty part of me that had also thought to write about how getting everything on their classroom supply lists meant for me a secret relief:  that because back-to-school was so close, I could taste freedom.)

And then I listened to syndicated radio guy John Tesh.

For those of you who read me regularly, you know I’m someone who gets completely emotional over sappy lyrics. So there I was the other night, driving in the car by myself—which meant I actually had gotten the car radio to myself without the kids in charge of what I would listen to.

I’d been having a tougher than usual week, and I was in one of those more vulnerable moments anyway, the kind where you search for those great songs from your teenage and college years to sing along to at the top of your lungs. With no one else in the car it gives you the freedom to pretend like you could take American Idol if only you weren’t too old to actually compete.

That’s when Teshie put on Five for Fighting, singing, “100 Years.”

15 there's still time for you
Time to buy, Time to lose yourself
Within a morning star

15 I'm all right with you
15, there's never a wish better than this
When you only got 100 years to live

The song floats through the years of a man from 15 to 22 to 33 to 45 to…

Suddenly you’re wise
Another blink of an eye
67 is gone
The sun is getting high
We're moving on...

The lyrics of the song go so fast, narrowing down the phases of life like a yellow highlighter pointing out how fast it all goes by—where did it go? Just yesterday I was walking into Mrs. Buchsbaum’s eighth grade math class with my fresh, loose-leaf notebook paper organized in my denim-covered, three-ring binder.

I can still see that old, 1960s-era slate metal pencil sharpener, screwed to the wall of my fifth grade homeroom. With every pencil I sharpen today with my fourth grader, surrounded by the heady smell of just-sharpened wood pencil shavings fresh in the room, I can feel what it felt like to turn the handle of that old manual model, whittling down pencils for the 10-year-old me.

How can it be that these supplies I’m buying aren’t for ME?? Really, I’m wistful for what it felt like to have the world splayed out. Though I miss the joy of unlimited time and possibility ahead for me, there’s a sure sweetness that it’s there for our children in spades, and I can appreciate the needful transition that comes with life.

15 I'm all right with you
15, there's never a wish better than this
When you only got 100 years to live

I’ll just have to make sure to remind them to stop and smell the loose leaf.