Back in the Classroom

Yesterday was my first day back, and except for the time the nanny called (Let this serve as a reminder for us all to turn off our ringers, I said), and except for the time I started babbling about how I thought we were all in a dream, and except for the one brief comment about manhandling texts and the other brief comment about herpes and semicolons, and except for the moment when I realized they are now HALF my age, that when I was their age, they were Eva's age, and except for the second when we just stared at each other as if through glass or windows or rain and were probably all thinking about where we had come from or where we were going, thinking about anything except where we were; except for all that, it felt good--really good--to be back.