A blue umbrella

Going back to school has been hard for Graham for a number of reasons. After being largely apart from his peer group for a long while, except when they come to the lake, Graham's social life has gone backwards, perhaps more than most kids'. I wrote about some specific issues he's been having a couple of weeks back. So he was hoping that he'd just see more of his friends back in school. Alas that has proven harder than expected, as the school system is working hard on keeping greater control of kids' interactions for contract tracing purposes (a valiant but most likely foolhardy effort for kids with driver's licenses, who have too much ability outside of school to recombine with one another).

Lunch in particular, once the freest of social times at high school, a time of joy and release, is a pale shadow of its former self. Kids have to sit in specific places outdoors and have only 15 minutes to eat. For a fair-skinned kid in the South, raised by his mom to be very conscious of the sun, that's a problem.

When Graham was leaving for school yesterday he saw this blue pastel umbrella that Natalie had used in the rain the day before. After ascertaining that it was dry, he said that he wanted to take it for school. I had checked the weather, so I knew there was no rain coming and I said that, then "Why do you want it?" "To keep the sun off me at lunch." There wasn't much time, so I just said "No" and sent him on his way.

We will need to go back and discuss. The social world is cruel. There is no good reason why men and boys shouldn't use brightly colored parasols to shield themselves from the sun, but they just don't do it in the South. It is not a good move for a boy who is trying to rebuild social capital that has eroded through a global public health crisis. He doesn't just glean this knowledge from the social norms, so sometimes I just have to teach it to him, a role I don't relish.