Today, thousands of bright-eyed kids had their first day of school.
In kindergarten they read a book and ate a snack.
In high school the girls looked at each other's clothes while the guys wondered if the army requires a high school education.
In college professors read syllabuses and the freshmen took notes on everything and the seniors took no notes at all.
And because I'm now a bona fide adult I went to work, came home, made dinner, and cleaned. Then Curtis (he's very wonderful) and I discussed our 50 year plan (just kidding, who has that, more like we tried to figure out our life for the next three days). After all that, I sat on the couch and stared out at the rain and thought about going to bed—but I couldn't let myself go, because everyone else in the world started school today. That means summer is over, and when summer is over I start to write again.
Every writer worth their salt (or pepper or turmeric or some other semi-ambiguous seasoning) will tell you that to get better at writing, you have to write. Conversely, if you want your career as a writer to screech to a grinding halt, take a long weekend.
I, unfortunately, have a rather thick skull (depending on who you ask: enormously thick, embarrassingly thick, lamentably thick), and refuse to be told that as an adult I can't take a summer vacation.
So I haven't written much at all this summer, and you're experiencing a display of the utter entropy of my mastery of the craft (for example, what an overworked sentence. should have just said I got worse at words). I did other things, like travel and eat as much ice cream as I wanted and go to the beach with Curtis (he's very wonderful) and watch the world whiz by from the saddle of my cherry red bike and see friends and family and all the babies. It was a great summer.
And now I'm back to real life and it's raining outside (as if even the weather is telling me to get down to business), and I've a manuscript to edit.
But I guess I don't really mind. Because it's the first day of school and it's the first day back to writing, and when it all comes down to it
—though I love swimming and sunshine and sand and travel and sleeping and biking and walking and playing ball and wandering in search of any old adventure and freckles—
I love writing more.