Days Of Our Lives

There are Picture Days, and Conference Days, and assorted other days that fill the calendar, as if they will affect every other part of the day in question. When they actually occur, it often turns out that they amount to simply a few minutes in the course of a day--teachers can really only see you for five (or sometimes three) minutes, school photographers spend just seconds taking the picture of your child that you will, for a price, own in assorted sizes. These are no longer "days." They are moments--just blips in a regular week. At least that's what I thought.

Except that Picture Day, if we parents don't forget it and send our kids to school in their favorite, wear for three days straight t-shirt, makes for at least a day of discussion and negotiation about wardrobe and hair (will any of it matter if the photo is taken last period, after the wear and tear of lunch and gym?).

Except that Conference Day, if we plan our work and life to be able to go, requires sign ups in advance, and patience when some parents just flat refuse to honor five minutes, and advance preparation, so that the twice-yearly five minutes isn't squandered.

Except that any "Day," whether it amounts to just a few minutes or not, demands our attention and adaptation to a routine that is not our routine, a set of circumstances that makes us think and rethink.

So, I guess I grant these "days" the status of "Days," because they manage to sneak in for not just the moments they take, but for the hours that surround those moments, and the weeks that may lead up to those hours. In moments, the pictures and the conferences and the whatever else are done. But they have altered us, and our flow of time and thought. And, as they say, "these are the Days of Our Lives...."