LEAVING LETTERS: "I am leaving summer"
postcards from readers
Dear Kelly,
Reading your book meant so much to me. It made me think about memory, parenting, books, and things to prioritize. Thank you.
It is the morning after Labor Day, and I am starting my 21st year as an elementary school teacher at a public school in Brooklyn. I woke, thinking maybe it was still weekend/summer, then feeling the urgency of school.
I am leaving summer.
With gratitude—
I’ve been saving this postcard for the start of the school year. I love the mixture of sadness to lose summer and the urgency of that first Tuesday in September. Even after 21 years, this writer still calls it that: urgency.
As a kid, I loved the possibility of the new school year, what magic a new folder and pencil case could conjure. I remember the importance of that first morning, waiting for the bus, seeing what my friends and I wore to school, the newness of the clothes and shoes, starchy and stiff.
Now, in my 15th year of teaching, I still think about what to wear on those first days, still look forward to new pens and notebooks, even as I complain about the supply lists for my own children. The night before the first day of school is hallowed. This year, my oldest will go to high school, which brings with it a new kind of nostalgia. I’m not sure how he is suddenly this old. Or how I am.
“I woke, thinking it was still summer…”
That shock of waking to one feeling, only for the reality of the day to crash into it, erasing an entire season, is something I’ve been feeling a lot lately. Even when that jolt is painful with excitement.
This postcard had me at the wisteria on the front. About 25 years ago, I moved into a second floor apartment in a row house in Astoria, Queens. This was my second apartment in the city after graduating and I moved in with a dear friend from college, M. We lived above our other dear friend, B., the first of our friends to get married. She and her husband lived in the two-story apartment below us. The three of us spent a lot of time in the big backyard garden, drinking coffee out of her green ceramic mugs and admiring the wisteria that snaked up over the back of the building. When in bloom, the purple flowers cascaded across our kitchen windows in a luscious burst of purple, making the entire small apartment fragrant with its sweet musk. I think of these women, who remain two of my closest friends in the world, every time I see these flowers.
I love that wisteria blooms in the summer and then again, if you are lucky, once more in fall. It is like a time traveler, reminding us that you really can exist in two seasons at once.
WHAT I’M READING:
On My Nightstand: Women by Chloe Caldwell, Monsters by Claire Dederer, Time Is A Mother by Ocean Vuong, and Who She Was by Samuel Freedman.
This was a beautiful week of re-reading! I escaped to the beach with my two kiddos who are in that sweet spot of teen sleeping-in—giving me extra alone-time in the morning hours—and autonomous beach reading/music relaxation—so I can actually read on the beach! Beauty! I will write a whole post dedicated to re-reading and teen beach-going, but here is a photo for now.
On Substack: Abigail Thomas is one of my favorite writers on the planet. I’ve read and re-read everything she’s published, invited her to my classroom, had conversations with her in bookshops, published her essays in my anthologies, and even had the honor to visit her at her home and take her out for sour cream cherry ice cream at Nancy’s in Woodstock. Even though I am well-versed in her genius, I am still gobsmacked by her Substack letters, which are nothing short of luminous. Each small burst manages to gut me in a new way and remind me why I love her writing so much. She is a master. Do yourself a favor and subscribe to her substack What Comes Next if you haven’t already.
The Leaving Season Postcard Project was born out of my love for postcards and a suspicion that we are all leaving things, all the time. If you’d like to send me a postcard, please check out this link for instructions.
Want to be part of The Leaving Season Postcard Project? Or use the postcards in your classroom or bookclub? Send me a note!
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Buy The Leaving Season here, Welcome to Shirley here, Wanting: Women Writing About Desire here, and This is the Place: Women Writing About Home here.
Thank you for the introduction to Abigail Thomas' writing. Subscribed!