School Days - Part I

The last time I was at Walmart, about ten days before the start of the new school year, as I walked past the aisle of school supplies I paused because I felt the pull of all those notebooks, pencils, pens, crayons, etc. just waiting for me to lovingly fondle; to pick up and put in my cart.

It was hard, but I resisted. I already have more notebooks, pens and pencils, etc. than I will ever use. My addiction is twofold, first the memories from my own grade school days when I was outfitted with a big chief tablet, two pencils and a box of eight crayons, second the memories of school supply shopping with my own children.

In addition to all those new supplies I purchased in the past, I also have things from our Saturday morning garage sale quests.

Some of which have never been used, by the person selling them, or by me! 

A Box of Pastels By Ted Kooser

I once held on my knees a simple wooden box

in which a rainbow lay dusty and broken.

It was a set of pastels that had years before

belonged to the painter Mary Cassatt,

and all the colors she'd used in her work

lay open before me. Those hues she'd most used,

the peaches and pinks, were worn down to stubs,

while the cool colors -- violet, ultramarine --

had been set, scarcely touched, to one side.

She'd had little patience with darkness, and her heart

held only a measure of shadow. I touched

the warm dust of those colors, her tools,

and left there with light on the tips of my fingers.

Cassatt is one of the artists I have long admired. She often painted pictures of mothers and children.

When Kari was in third grade, her teacher was a Miss Cassatt who said she was related to the artist.