Historically, where we live in the Northeast, the Tuesday after Labor Day is a first day of school. Two of my grown children are going back to school (college and graduate school). But, am I not making lunches or filling pencil boxes or meeting school buses or soothing anxieties this morning. (A sweet time, this child raising, while it lasted.)

In fact, the routines of my past mothering role are toppled. I set an early, early alarm and wake before it rings - because, I want to write. I'm revising a creative nonfiction piece, and I linger, writing in bed until the dogs, who are patient, after all, can wait no longer, and we go out, (not to the bus), to find what's interesting to see in the woods this day, the day after Labor Day, and in the woods, I find the mushroom is toppled too. 

All text and photos copyright Kelly DuMar 2017 unless otherwise attributed