And God said, “Let there be playschool.” Part One

I am finally calmed down. Classical guitar is playing over the radio at Starbucks. A tall Americano is such a treat. There is a lull before all the high school kids come upon the store like a muster of confused screaming peacocks in skinny jeans.

I was a wreck this morning for Charlie's first full day of playschool. It started last night on my way home thinking about what I would pack Charlie for lunch. I couldn't remember what the school had recommended. The list of suggested items was buried somewhere deep within the voluminous student manual we got last week. I stopped by King Soopers to grab some snacks for Charlie. I bought Sunmaid raisins because the generic brand is just not as good. I was sort of overwhelmed. The grocery store has so many choices. I chose three ears of Olathe sweet corn. I bought a six-pack of prepackaged mandarin oranges. All I could think Charlie might want to eat was what I always wanted when I was a kid. I wanted cookies. I bought three bags of cookies; chewy chocolate chip, chocolate chunk, and M&M. The habit of eating my emotions is genetic.

It was late when I arrived home. Charlie was in bed. I spent a couple hours filling out an application to write for an internet publication. When I hit the sack, Jill and I noticed a putrid smell coming up from the drain in the shower which it does from time to time. Jill spritzed the entire bedroom and bathroom with a tropical body spray. As I stared at the shadows on the dark ceiling the mist settled into my eyes and lungs. Tears flooded my eyes and it felt like I was wearing a corset. (or what I might imagine a corset feeling like since I have never worn one). I had a panic attack. This prompted me to move to the office and sleep on the twin bed for the remainder of the night. When my eyes finally stopped burning I was kept awake further into the evening by the blinking neon blue LED light on the computer router. I must have complete darkness to sleep.

I woke up to Charlie crying for Daddy. If I pretend not to hear him I can normally count on Jill to rouse and go to the kitchen and get him a bottle of milk ready. That was the case this morning. After some time I heard Jill talking Charlie into waking me up in the office. Charlie came to the side of the bed and said good morning. It was almost eight o'clock. Playschool started at 9am. That's when I started to freak out. The anxiety was all about the iron curtain. The iron curtain is like a metal garage door located in the pickup/dropoff window which can be raised and lowered in the event of an elevated terror alert or when school begins and ends. Well the iron curtain is closed in the morning and then, at 9am sharp the iron curtain is lifted. Charlie's day begins. I don't understand it, but I was having this obsession over the iron curtain. I had to be there before it was raised or something terrible would happen. Of course that's nonsense, but that's just where I was in my head. Not to mention all the kinds of thoughts about getting Charlie ready swirling around there too; packing his lunch, packing his bag, making sure his registration forms were filled in, having his two boxes of tissue and one package of wet wipes ready, choosing an outfit that's cute but able to be soiled, choosing a spare outfit including socks, load his wide brimmed zookeeper hat and a jacket for outdoor play, write a note of encouragement to include in his lunchbox, finding a divided food container which would fit in his lunchbox, getting ham and eggs cooked for breakfast, dressing Charlie, preparing his lunch, going with grapes instead of raisins, halving the grapes, all before the iron curtain ka-chunk ka-chunked up at 9am.

Jill knows enough to avoid me during these psychotic outbursts. She played a rather graceful dance partner to a clumsy brute. She helped me fill in the forms. She asked me what Charlie's likes were. I told her books and music and running and playing and blocks. I told her his favorite animal is a lemur from Madagascar, the aye-aye. No species of lemur lives anywhere but Madagascar. I made her write all that down. I started flipping through the yellow pages of the student handbook searching for things I'd possibly overlooked. I could only think about the iron curtain so I closed the manual and got my camera and hastily staged a few first day of playschool pictures on the front porch. Jill put the backpack on Charlie's shoulders. "Don't like it," he grumbled and then he wiggled out of it. I snapped some pictures. He said, "Cheese!" He was actually cooperative. He put up a fight coming back inside. Jill asked me what he dislikes. I told her, "His backpack and obedience."

It was a far different mood yesterday at dusk when I jogged Charlie out to the park. It was so peaceful. I stopped running when we got to the lake and let Charlie get out of the stroller. Leaving the main paved path that circumnavigates the reservoir, we followed a small trail through the tall grasses and trees. There we looked for a cheetah and a zebra. Charlie found a cheetah in the tree. I squashed a mosquito taking a blood sample from my forehead. We broke from the wood and came upon the beach. We heard two frogs splash in the stagnant water of the reed-lined wetlands near the shore when we walked by. The packed trail became sandy and Charlie asked me to "fix it." I removed his croc shoe and dumped out a tablespoon of gritty sand. Then, I put the shoe back on. Two steps later, he said "Hurt. Fix it," again. I let him walk barefoot to the water.

I squatted in the sand alongside him and watched as he picked up handfuls of the beach and tossed them into small waves. A handful of sand hitting the water sounds like a silk scarf being torn. I showed Charlie a seashell. He threw it in the water. I had no anxiety. I watched as one small humped wave kept being replaced by another. The chirrup, chirrup, chirrup of stridulating crickets in the woods followed the rhythmic pattern of the waves. As one song ended another began. I wondered how long it would take for Charlie to throw all the sand on the beach into the water.

The certain quietude of those gentle waves had been whipped into a ferocious tempest by morning. The iron curtain would soon lift.