Winter sunlight

My Wonderful Smart Beautiful Daughter is home from college, but she still has a few projects to finish and send in electronically before the end of the week. I am in the same situation. My classes are done, but I've a stack of portfolios to grade and letters of recommendation to write before I can relax.

So this morning, we were both home working. Well, sort of working. We did stop to watch an episode of the Gilmore Girls on her laptop. I don't know where my daughter learned her procrastination skills, but they certainly rival mine.

Late morning, as we drove to the elementary school for With-a-Why's Christmas concert, we compared notes on how little we had gotten done and how much work we still had left to do before the end of the week. The work includes, incidentally, some cleaning, some grocery shopping, and cooking for about 80 people because we have a big party at our house on Saturday.

But when we walked into the little brick elementary school, we both relaxed. The elementary school, which is the same school I went to as a child, has not changed much in forty years. The green tiled walls still have crayon drawings taped to them, and boots are still lined up in the hall outside each classroom. We were early, and the children were still all in the classrooms, but we made our way to the gym, which was filled with big squares of winter sunlight.

As we sat down on the bleachers, my daughter nudged me. Across the gym, three girls sat on the floor in a patch of sun, cutting shapes out of construction paper, happily chatting with each other.

"Elementary school is so wonderful," Daughter said. "The kids don’t have to do any work."

She stared across the room enviously, "I mean, those girls are just sitting there cutting things out of construction paper."

We both sighed.

And that's my plan for next week. After we get done with college stuff and home holiday stuff and all that needs to be done, maybe we will sit on the floor in the sunlight somewhere and cut things out of brightly coloured paper.