They remind me of what I've learned to forget [text follows pics]

Mumblings on the first day of school, sun-cooking, and about how my
intolerance is mine, all mine!

My kids started back to elementary school today. But it doesn’t feel like summer is over. The thermostat outside a storage facility read 104 degrees on the way to pick them up. Gaseous evaporation waves wafgled (wiggled & wafted) across the median and asphalt on South Lamar in mid-day. You could take a half-billion recalled salmonella laden eggs and make a giant inedible omelet on the streets of Austin on a day like this.


I have no tolerance for heat. My body doesn’t self-regulate temperature real well, and between that and my limbs that move like lumber, I struggle not to make everyone else as miserable about the heat as I am. Like most things that grind me down, I operate under the delusion that I can gift the folks around me with unrepercussive silence by refusing to share my suffering. This delusion is replete with crown and medals for stoic bravery and unbridled kindness.

I sat listening to an update on the “ground zero mosque” on NPR while waiting at a series of lights on my way to the school. It reminded me that, in addition to my intolerance of all meteorological phenomena that I disagree with, I also have no tolerance for other people’s failures to be tolerant. I’m a real Gandhi about accepting religious difference, a regular Albert Schweitzer about my fellow humans’ rights and liberty, a veritable Rich Little for echoing the multi-perspectival acceptance of relativism. However, I have no patience at all for other folks who flat out refuse an invitation to others for the same social privileges that they demand for themselves.

Rather than wait in the car, which quickly began to mimic a convection oven once the engine and AC was turned off, I entered my daughter’s second grade class. As if in some post-modern Deweyian mélange’ , I observed a quietly collaborative effort at clean-up being practiced by my daughter and her classmates, quickly followed by a few moments of Yoga to wind down from the day. The kids were awesome, unskeptical, eager and open to the newness of it all. My interpretive frame of intolerance seemed impossible to grok at that moment.

My son came bounding across the school’s lawn with the enthusiasm and swagger that only a fifth grader can evidence in a school that only goes through the fifth grade. The spastic sway of loopy arms cutting the atmospheric cauldron, the jangly shock of bounding wavy hair, and the broad smile on his face all worked to assure me that the day had gone well – that not only had he survived, but he had thrived and felt encouraged about his role in the universe. The car ride home involved a rushed verbal battle between the kids to please me with recounts of their many uniquely fascinating experiences at school, and specifically, examples of being in league with others learning.

While they both plugged into homework and snack, I returned to my earlier musings on intolerance. I’ve learned how to hate certain things. Stuff like heat and stoplights. Circumstances like waiting without a chair and standing in a check-out line. People who deny the science of climate change, stem-cell research and evolution. Groups who espouse cultural segregation and are satisfied with inequity in basic human and legislated civil rights. I’ve been a damn good student, given myself ribbons and trophies for “doing the right thing,” and gathering facts to avoid hypocrisy. Now, I really need to learn how to make sure my kids end up just like me, only way better.