Shoes to fill

Here we sit. Seated on the edge of a small walking bridge, dangling our legs over the water the runs along underneath.

The bridge is this moment. The water is time.

We know each other pretty well now. Well enough to share most things - or versions of events that we know the other can handle.

I have known you all of your life. You've known me the most vivid percentage of mine.

That's how it goes when you become a parent. A part of you is born.

The bridge is a short one, and we can't stay here long. Well, as this goes to press, we only have until now, because today is official orientation day of your first year in high school.

As I write this I have a list of things on a piece of paper and another one in my head. By this evening I will likely have another list that I have written out, because I'll worry about forgetting things.

The shoes I bought you were too small. I knew what size your feet were. I guess I just thought that maybe size 11 would at least do for the life of these shoes. It turns out instead that you will start high school acting your age and your shoe size. Size 12, here we come. Big shoes to fill, starting high school. Your own.

These shoes, under my measure, should be filled as someone who is ready to engage. Someone who is ready to commit to building their own life, their own future. Because that's what this is, even if it doesn't feel like it. First steps, towards your interests, your passions, your eventual part-time jobs, careers, hobbies. I don't mean you have to lead a jam-packed life full of non-stop things, I do mean that it is worth...taking seriously. Seriously not in the stern way, but seriously in that the steps you make now will shape you.

Unless you're tottering around on stilettos, you are the ones that move the shoes. You aren't at the mercy of them. They should fit. You will learn to pick out the right ones for the right occasions, so believe it or not, when we say, 'Walk a mile in my shoes' it is probably a good idea to outline which shoes you're wearing at the time.

You've worn Crocs-style sandals all summer. Shoes that are ready for a little more stable ground are what we've bought. A pair for gym, as your grade six graduation shoes still fit for regular use, thank goodness.

After orientation though, we can go back to the bridge to watch the water rush underneath, but I think we're going to be looking the other way. So far, we've been looking at where the water was coming from. After orientation, I suspect we'll mostly be looking at where the water is going. We won't be able to see very far down current, and it will probably look a lot like the other side, but that is only until the first real day of high school, because after that the view will change, whether we want it to or not. I'm okay with letting it. We've sat on bridges before. They're beautiful, poignant places. Everything is a little clearer, but you still can't see what's in the water most of the time. A flick of a fish, the sound of a bullfrog close-by talking to us from the cattails, hidden from view, but loud and from the gut.

We'll walk a piece together after leaving this bridge, and then from now on, it is possible that we'll have to make plans to meet at the bridge, and sometimes one will make it and the other won't, or the other will cancel at the last minute because of a change in plans. I will make time for it though, because I sense how important it will be. I know that I left my parents waiting on that bridge sometimes too.

You know your locker combinations, so at ease with the combination locks, more than I was for some time, although I'm fairly certain that my locker in red square at RRHS, with the same combination for most of my years there was 1006-26, or something like that. If I pretend it's in my hand and turn my thumb in a circle, those are the stops it wants to make.

There is something about that step, about owning your locker too, that you will enjoy putting your things in there (what is now this morning) at orientation. All of the accessories you chose are purple. A purple mirror, a purple extra shelf, a stand that goes in the bottom to accommodate for your boots underneath when the snow flies, and give you more space on top. A little magnet holder too, for pens or whatever you decide to keep in there.

We ordered your personalized labels, and that will be the next thing, picking them up and identifying all of your stuff, from lunch pail (the one you chose says Play Hard Lunch Hard), and your brand new school bag, the first one you've been able to pick out yourself. Before you started kindergarten I picked out Swiss Army school bags for you and your brother. Your brother's hasn't had quite the same wear, but yours made it, as we planned, from kindergarten through to the end of grade six, emerging with several holes, a few missing parts, and one broken zipper on a compartment. It was time to retire, and we did a good thing for the environment making it stick through until now.

You tried out all of the interesting school bags at Winners, where there was enough of a combination from the cheaper (in price and quality) to pricier, more fandangled ones. The one you chose is great - no zippers (you felt it would last longer that way), with sturdy fasteners and one big compartment, very comfortable straps, even when loaded down. It's grey with swirls on it and a royal blue lining.

This morning you'll wear your brand new first day of school shirt, as school photos are taken on orientation day at Massey-vanier High School. It is a nice button-up dress shirt, elephant grey with tiny very light pink flowers, with short sleeves that have a light pink rollup edge with the same tiny flowers in white. It's subtle and classy.

After so many years working with young people your age, I'm ready for the things to come. I know it will be different since you are my child. I'm ready for whatever bridges we have to sit on and watch - some will feel like Golden Gate, some will feel like the little wooden footpath bridges here and there tucked across Townships streams. Some will feel like rocks in water, that we are able to squat down on or sit. I am ready to sit on all of them. You are going to be my guide through many things too, and sometimes I will find myself at our old bridges looking back at the current from where we've come. Sometimes I will want it to be frozen, even just for a few moments, knowing that it can't stay that way.

Shoes that fit. Bridges to observe. Water that seldom stops, and only briefly.

Current state: High School.