“Don’t you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.” -Kathleen Kelly, “You’ve Got Mail”
Every time I watch “You’ve Got Mail” and I hear Kathleen Kelly (played by Meg Ryan) say this, I think of how much I love to buy school supplies. Even as an adult I get glittery-eyed when the schools supply signs go up, especially in Target. I have a small paper addiction, so there’s that.
I remember being a kid and getting so excited for the end of July/beginning of August because that meant that my mother would take all four kids out to buy things like pencils and backpacks and new school clothes.
Going school shopping marked the beginning of a series of events that led to the highlight of any school year: the first day. As much as everyone dreaded going back and getting into that routine again, there was also this excitement attached to the weeks leading up to that first day. You lined up all your school supplies, carefully packed your supply box, made sure everything was in the backpack and carefully chose what you would wear.
But before that first day, there were many other rituals you had to participate in. There were things like getting a sports physical, signing up for clubs and actually going to the school so your mom could write a check so you could attend. And this, my friends, was my favorite part.
After months of not smelling the stale school air, not seeing all of your friends and not interacting with staff and teachers, there was a bustle in the office, the library and in the hallways. Maybe no one was prepared to end the long summer days, but everyone was excited to make that contact with familiar faces again. You’d see people giving hugs and high-fives, making plans and sharing stories about what happened over the last few weeks (because social media was not a tool, so people actually didn’t know what you’d been up to unless you called them).
The kids would see if their friends were in their class and then they’d talk about their predictions for the upcoming year. I’d even venture to say the weeks leading up to school were never really about going back to school, it was about meeting back up and being together again.
Because of technology and our desire to make everything simple, we’re losing those rituals and connections. We’re buying school supplies is ready-made boxes and registering our kids online. I know “times are changing” and “this will make things more efficient,” but piece by piece we are losing that time that we get to meet up, share stories and give hugs and high fives. We’re replacing it with other things like work or Facebook or even reading the Mahomet Daily. We’re disconnecting.
And just to put it all out there, this makes my heart really, really sad. Because what the world needs most is human connection. We value rituals as less and less important. They become replaced with things that are supposed to make our lives “more convenient” so we have more time to spend together, but that time is just replaced with other meaningless tasks that pull up farther and farther apart.
My kids still go to buy school supplies even though we can now buy them in a box. And I’ll register my kids online because I have no other option. But I’m sad that so many kids are growing up in this world where they won’t have the memories of going out to lunch with their mom after buying school supplies or looking at bulletin boards before the school year starts or playing volleyball because the coach saw them at registration and liked how tall and athletic they were. I miss those times. There were fights and struggles and laughter and peace during those times. We learned how to interact…and I’m sad to see that interaction is second to convenience.
Kathleen Kelly’s fondness of newly-sharpened pencils was less about pencils and more about the rituals we undertake during certain times of the year. These rituals are a part of every culture when we say goodbye to one time in our lives and hello to a new experience.
