First Day

It’s the third day of school, and my ten-year-old daughter is in tears. She missed the school bus despite being ready and waiting. She had appeared in the kitchen an hour before the bus’s scheduled pick-up with bed-snarled hair. She wore her Vans t-shirt with pajama bottoms. Her breath reeked morning stale. In the next hour, she traded the pajama bottoms for black leggings, freshened the breath with red-white-green-striped toothpaste, ran a brush through the hair, and sat on the couch to practice math fact flashcards. She was ready for school. She was not prepared for the bus to arrive 13 minutes early.

Third days are worse than first days. On the first day of school (of the year, of life, of anything), I am prepared. My nerves have an extra tingle, my mind’s focus screws tight to the sticking point. I’m ready for the thing (the first thing of its kind), and I could spring like an antelope with the anticipation that has built. But I find the tingling focus impossible to harness past, say, 48 hours. By the third day of school, my ability to help my daughter catch a school bus on time has depleted to the level of my ability to maintain the average New Years’ resolution.

Unlike the chocolate chip cookies I may stuff in my face with abject apologies to the version of myself that swore to lose ten pounds post-New Years, the school bus missing was not under my control. The bus arrived unexpectedly and unannounced. We did not know of its presence until we heard the air brakes swoosh on departing our stop. That’s when the tears started, and we detoured from bus to car in the driveway. First day of school was smiles. Third day of school, tears.

Before the first day of school, I had a first day of vacation. On Edisto Island, one of my vacation rituals is to wake early, timing the automatic coffee maker to fire up a good 20 minutes before dawn. I fill my travel mug with coffee and wheel my bike to the road before the sun is scheduled to rise over the marsh. I want to be crossing the causeway from beach to State Park forest as the sun throws its first lancing rays through the stratosphere to earth. 

On my first vacation dawn bike ride, I cruised over that causeway’s asphalt and directed tires onto the sandy trail of the State Park. There had been rain overnight and not enough hours had passed for puddles to drain through the soil into the marsh’s thirst. I concentrated on maneuvering the bike handlebars around the puddles. The tires skidded in mud. Wet blades of palmetto fronds clattered against my arms and thighs. Invisible spider webs wrapped my face. I was on alert as my bike came to the first boardwalk along the trail, and therefore I easily spied the missing boardwalk board. I stopped my bike.

Board-board-board-board-NO board. I considered the four-inch gap left by the missing board. My bike tire could roll right over that. Couldn’t it? The tide was high and receding that dawn, and the tidal creek surged mere inches below the boards. Through the gap, I watched the swirls. My tire could roll over that, I thought. But was I sure? Not the first time over on the first day of vacation. So I walked my bike, feeling silly as the tire barely bounced when encountering the gap. I continued on the other side but wondered if I should fix the boardwalk. The extra board was there—pushed up and over on another board.

That first day, I stopped my bike, wiggled the kickstand into the sand, and walked back to the gap. I reinserted the board. But then I wondered about runners, walkers, and bike riders who might follow this path throughout the day. There was nothing about this particular loosely reinserted board to suggest it might unseat itself to fly up and threaten a step or tire. In my bike basket I carried my cell phone, my coffee travel mug, and my headphone case. I had nothing remotely like a hammer with which to fix the boardwalk board. On that first day, I opted to replace the board in the gap but left it slightly off-center, hoping the irregularity  would catch the eye and cation anyone happening along. I felt calmer knowing that board covered the threatening gap of swirling water.

On the second morning, my bike ride brought me again to the boardwalk. The board was still there, but someone had moved it perfectly aligned back in place. I wouldn’t have known to look for the threat except that the previous day, I had seen that gap-toothed boardwalk. Could my bike roll right over? I slowed, and my bike did ride over with only a slight bucking of the loose board.

Remember, though, that third mornings are different than first mornings. On the third morning of my vacation, my bike ride again encountered the boardwalk. The no-board was again missing, somehow moved ten feet up the sandy path. Board-board-board-board-NO board. This being the third day, not the first, my patience had waned, attention wandered, energy drained. So I rode right over that gap. From the third day forward, I pedaled my bike with no slowing, and each time my wheels chucked over that gap, I cared less and less about the potential hazard.

Why am I writing about a misbehaving, weathered two-by-four when I could be recording other beach vacation memories? I could highlight the smorgasbord of barbecue we ordered for take out once and then, because it was so memorable, twice. I could remember the beach tent collapsing on our folding chairs and the neighboring beach sitters rushing to our rescue to right all the wind had set to wrong. I could capture the children bobbing on boogie boards in the surf while discussing the important topics of teenage years: Stranger Things, LuLu Lemon, and their sprouting number of armpit hairs. Weeks after this vacation, as I think about third days, why do I return to a gap on a bike ride’s boardwalk?

Because on the third day, things are different than the first day. The first day? It’s fresh, exciting, circled on the calendar, and zinging with anticipation. I am careful to catch and fix all that could be missing or hazardous. On the third day, routines have be established, resolves upheld, tears wiped, and grit ground out to fuel a fourth, fifth, and nth day. Even Jesus, on the third day, had to vacate the grave and get back to the semblance of living. On the third day, things get real.

This morning as my daughter buckled into the car and shoved her backpack on the middle seat for the car ride to school, her eyelids pinked and tears pooled next to her nostrils. She tugged up the collar of her Vans shirt to sop the tears. This is not the picture I would capture and disperse over social media like I would the one titled “first day of school.”

 I can be impressive enough on the first day of school (of the year, of life, of anything) because for that day or moment, I am overly prepared. I’ve got a nerve tingle and a brain focus. But those super powers drain away by the third day, and on that third day, what I have to offer is just me at my normal. On the third day, I find myself slightly less impressive, less alert, less prepared. But it’s on that third day that I dare to charge straight over the gaps. On the third day, I move from hope to action. I get on with the business of living and roll with the day, the year, the life, the anything. Third days are maybe worse than first days. Equally true, third days are more humbled and realistic than first days.

“Have a great Friday,” I said to my daughter at school drop off. Because it’s the third day and not the first day any longer, I’m cheering on an average Friday. She slammed the car door and shouldered her backpack. Pulling away from the school in the line of other parents dropping off late kids, I checked the rearview mirror to watch that floral backpack disappear in the entrance. Tomorrow, we’ll have a weekend and then another week followed by another weekend. None of these days will be the first, but they will be real, and because third days are harder than first days, I will encounter the day’s demands with resolve. Third days roll right over the gaps that pop up in front of me. The third day is worse and more victorious than the first day.