Sunday morning a guest minister opened his sermon with references to the beginning of a new school year and all that means to children and youth, to teachers and principals, to parents. He elicited knowing giggles and groans from throughout the church as students and parents (and grandparents no doubt) projected themselves into the rhythms of school bus rides, homework, recess, tests, and friendships. Despite recent experiments with school calendars most of us in this country and for the most part globally still feel those traditional patterns of school/no school/school. For me, now eight years out from having worked to ensure that facilities and faculties were fully ready for the opening bell, I still hear and feel the comfortable buzz of a new year in late August. Two experiences suggest in part why those rituals still cling to my sense of time. One is a blessing, and one a tragedy, though both are each. Recently, while checking out of a local hardware store, the clerk greeted me by name. We chatted; he asked how long I’d lived in the area; back and forth for a few minutes as he recorded our transaction. Clearly he knew me, but the best I could do was allow him to think I recognized him since one part of my brain was engaged (and he wore a first-name nametag, “Chris”) while another was in search mode. He talked about when I was his principal, how much had changed in those 30+ years, his family, and his job. I was uplifted by his strong, positive recollections from his childhood, thanked him for recognizing me and speaking up, and left the store. Hours later I finally got it; he’d been in second grade at the first school where I was principal. A great little kid, full of curiosity, possessing a blend of innocence and experience not uncommon in very rural Vermont. During his second grade year his mother and a sibling were killed in a car accident; life as he’d known it was shredded, and eventually the remaining family moved away. Today, he is married and providing for a family of his own. When we reconnected at the hardware counter after three decades, we didn’t talk about tragedy, we talked instead about blessings common to us; homes, jobs, family. Recently, my younger daughter’s first grade teacher died after an arduous battle with multiple cancers. Sue was Lindsay’s teacher more than twenty years ago, and we still remember her fondly as just the sort of person parents want as the teacher for their six-year-old. She was energetically there for the kids, a loving advocate, effective teacher, and nearly perfect in loco parentis. We’d hear from Sue when we’d see each other at the market; she’d have a smile and story ready at the breakfast cafe on Saturday mornings; and in the ensuing years she always asked about Lindsay’s life. That was it, actually, Sue was the sort of teacher who became part of the children’s lives. Sue retired a decade ago and fully enjoyed what that allowed her until stricken with voracious cancer, a tragedy preventing her full celebration and reward. However, when we speak today of Sue we don’t hover over tragedy; we talk more about the blessings common to us; shared careers, family, children. The cycle of a new school year conjures the scent of unbroken Crayolas, the shiver of frost in the morning, and the chorus of animated voices in the hallways. It also speaks to the lives such as Chris, Sue, and me touched and blended forever. It is a familiar, enriching rhythm.