The weight of the world

Her shoulders have begun to ache. The burden of a heavy backpack as she gazes down toward a cellphone, no doubt.

The weight of the world resting there.

She muddles through her work with a stiff upper lip and a few discreet stretches to counterbalance herself.

The school day is hours over, yet she is still there. Working.

She makes a silly face and freezes it in Snapchat; sending her goofy likeness off into the void.

I “like” it as I sit out in the parking lot, waiting.

Even with the windows all the way up I can hear her voice dancing as she moves toward the car. She is saying “goodbye” to friends as she leaves play rehearsal. It sounds like she’s singing.

I recognize the attention she’s paid to her hair as she casually flips it, and notice the exact purse of her lips as she smiles and waves to someone I can’t quite make out from my vantage point.

A friend? Teacher? Perhaps.

It is dark and past her usual bedtime. She’s been going at it for hours, days, months.

This school play is no joke. Nearly four hours a day since the new year started. When the curtain opens later this month, the lights will artfully cascade on a professional-looking set.

In the audience, first-time theater parents will stop breathing for a few beats of their heart. They will look around at their neighbors in disbelief.

“Is this a high school play?”

We’ve all asked the same question that first time.

It seems kismet, somehow, as I watch her through the glass. She has always been an actress.

But her act stops the moment she opens the car door.

She tosses her bag in the back and slides in up front with a deep sigh. She buckles her seatbelt and immediately adjusts the radio station.

“You don’t mind if I change it.”

It’s not a question. She is the guest, and guests in my car get to choose the tunes.

It’s just how I roll.

She was silent for a while as we drove. The music faded into the background. She doesn't want me to ask her about her day. But I ask anyway. Adults, she tells me, never understand.

She tells me about hustling off to the gymnasium with her classmates so the principal could lead them in seventeen minutes of silence. One for each life taken in another school shooting.

I wondered if he mentioned how the title “Principal” is a combination of PRINCE and PAL.

“It's not funny.”

She rolled her eyes. “It was supposed to be a student-led event, but it was all planned by teachers. Kids weren't even allowed to say anything about guns or gun control.

“Some kids were able to speak, but they weren't free to speak.

“They just told us how we're different. How they are prepared. And that they are keeping us safe in ways we can't begin to know. In ways even parents don't know.

“And all I can think is I bet those teachers in Florida felt the same way: 'This isn't the kind of thing that happens here.'

“But it can happen anywhere.”

I can't argue with her. I can only switch off the ignition and help her carry her book bag into the house.

The smallest of burdens.