Our Cairo Summer & Sending My Boys off to School
I found myself meticulously cleaning the kitchen yesterday: scrubbing burnt crumbs off the oven floor, emptying leftovers long forgotten, disinfecting the tiny bit of countertop behind the sink. A playlist I created for running through the snowy streets of Maryland five short months ago was streaming aloud. Tom Petty’s Wildflowers came on, and I turned the volume up a few notches. As I slowly cleaned the grime from summertime, my mind kept returning to this pivotal moment. My boys started school yesterday. Both of them, off and out of the nest and into their respective classrooms. The eldest joined the 3rd graders waiting to meet their teacher and the youngest, with his oversized backpack clunking back and forth, boldly walked into his kindergarten classroom. He let me know he was capable of checking himself in. He threw his arms around my neck and squeezed tight. He’s always been my hugger, and I think he knew I needed that particular hug more than him.
I have known this day was coming since they were little. Making our way through the long days that felt like they’d never end. A rambunctious 4 year old bouncing off the back of the sofa. A squishy little brother crawling around the dirt stained hardwoods. I swear the years that followed brought about my first grey hairs and the nice little wrinkle between my brows that doesn’t go away even when I try to smoooth it out. Those days were exhausting. And yet they were also the most rewarding.
I’ve both longed for and loathed this passage of time. Longed for time to myself, a sense of rhythm to my days, renewed creative energy for things beyond mothering. All the while I’ve loathed the thought of my babies growing too quickly. They now choose their own outfits - a battle I happily don’t fight. And wipe their own butts - hallelujah! They are starting to ask questions to life’s mysteries that I’m not ready to give a firm answer on one way or another. Our years between now and when they go off to college will be dictated by semester schedules. Their desire to spend time with friends will outweigh my attempt at family movie nights. Each of their interests will shift and independence will grow. The future I used to daydream about while tucking them in for the fourth time and oh my goodness can’t mama just have her glass of wine in quiet?! It is unfolding before my eyes.
We moved to Cairo at the end of an exhausting year of virtual learning for 2nd grade. This meant all day, every day, juggling schedules and chaos and no alone time at all. Yet knowing this summer was our last before both boys started school full time, I made every effort to be present with them.
Cairo in the summertime is hot. But it’s actually no hotter than an August day in the humid South where we are accustomed. The boys had their first official summer job to keep a neighbor’s cat and plants alive and happy, to which they succeeded brilliantly. They earned a dollar a day and spent their hard earned cash on pop-its. We picked up tennis, the three of us, taking lessons 3 nights a week. We ate our way through the summer’s bounty of peaches, tomatoes, plums, and mangoes. We bought a 15 year old car for Friday excursions to Ain Sokhna on the Red Sea. We built complicated lego ships, learned to solve one face of a Rubix cube, and decided we’d never eat octopus again after watching My Octopus Teacher.
Our summer followed a rhythm that felt familiar. It was ordinary, but in an extraordinary sort of way. I sat at the pool one afternoon watching my boys continually dive off the diver’s block and perfect their back flips under the water. As we were drying off, I stopped to notice the red goggle marks on their sun-kissed cheeks. I gazed intently at how the structure of their faces are changing. That future I used to long for and dream about? It was right there in their maturing faces.
As I finished cleaning up the kitchen, I allowed myself to feel both the loss and the gift of this shifting season. Those early years opened my eyes to a new way of living. The necessity for routine, to participate in the mundane activities of growing a small child. Being fully present in the day to day. I began to see how all those moments continually, little by little, add up - to this. This present moment I’m given to watch my boys grow. As we start a new school year, I know it will feel like time is flying by far too quickly. But I want to be present for it all.
