My eldest son started his academic year in a new school recently, after a two month break. On the first day I suggested that we should leave home together as I was walking my second son to school. He wasn't keen; perhaps he didn't want to be known as the new boy whose father took a video of him setting foot into the school premises. But why would I do that? Openly? Well we will never know now. On the first day each year the new students are greeted by a team of cheerleaders at the school entrance. Maybe I will video him cheerleading next year instead.
He completed his aquarium project the day before he started school. He spent weeks planning and researching on the tank and equipment, and how to create an ecosystem for the fishes. There were certain weekends when he was out the whole day with his aunt hunting for things that he wanted. I have never seen him quite as determined or excited about something. The aquarium sits in his room and these days, rather than avoiding his room, we all take turns visiting his room to admire his fishes. He's made effort to keep his room tidy partly because it was one of the conditions I set for starting an aquarium. Or perhaps he is just too shy to let his fishes stare into a chaotic outer world from their habitat. Bit by bit, he is changing his surrounding, and his surrounding is changing him.
When I walk home after sending my second son to school, I will take a quick glance into the secondary school where my eldest son studied. It will remind me of the mornings when he sat at the outdoor assembly area talking to his friends before the school day starts. Although he isn't in that school anymore, it still feels like he is. It feels like if I looked hard enough, I would see him amongst the kids. I get sentimental over such things. Or maybe it is not so much about wanting to hold on to the past as much as it is about accepting that this is a glance into the future. Bit by bit things are changing.
