It Is

 Sometimes I write about being caught in a reverie. That is what truly happened to me this past Monday morning. 

At 7:55 AM, I was standing in the doorway of the classroom building of my school. The school I refer to as "mine" because I have spent nearly half my life there. I was staring off into the middle distance, somewhere in the direction of the windows of the office of our Teacher on Special Assignment. The plastic sign screwed into the wall next to that office reads "Assistant Principal." There is a laminated piece of paper that has been carefully handwritten and taped over that sign that says "Teacher On Special Assignment," in case there was any confusion. We don't have an assistant principal. My school is not big enough to afford such a position. 

Which doesn't mean that we don't occasionally need one. When our principal is off site for a meeting or up to her elbows in some other business on campus that doesn't allow her to rush to the scene of whatever major or mild emergency needs attention. Someone has to show up and be that calm voice of authority until our Actual Principal is free to work her magic. Sometimes it's our Teacher on Special Assignment. Sometimes it's our Restorative Justice Coordinator. Sometimes it's our Admin Assistant. Sometimes it's me. We all acknowledge that we are happy to step in and help out, but even happier when the Actual Principal shows up. This same scenario can be played out using the absence of a third grade teacher. Someone will step in and fill that void until that teacher shows up after being caught in traffic or late from a doctor's appointment, or a substitute will appear and then we can get them settled while the kids wonder what awaits them in a day without their "regular teacher."

In the moments before the gates opened on the First Day Of School, I was standing in that doorway trying to recall any or all of the dozens that proceeded it. I was not nearly as nervous as I had been decades ago. In a previous century. There was some anticipation. I ran through lists of students' names that I knew would be returning. How many of them would remember my name?

It was while I was flipping through the rolodex in my mind when I noticed that our staff had begun to gather at the gate. Usually, these folks would be busy rushing about making copies or preparing their rooms for whatever was about to take place that day. But not now. They were all there to greet the reason for our work: The Kids. 

"Mister Caven?" 

It was our Math Tutor. She brought me back to the here and now. 

"Is it time?"

Yes. It is.