Nat Locke: The Irresistible Pull of Back-to-School Stationery and Nostalgia
For the past week, I have been fighting a constant urge to visit Officeworks. Yes, you heard that right. The temptation to wander through the aisles of stationery heaven has been almost overwhelming. And if you are wondering how often this thought crosses my mind, the answer is simple: all the time. I have a deep and abiding love for stationery that borders on the obsessive.
Recently, while decluttering a small corner of my home, I stumbled upon fourteen brand new notebooks. Fourteen! Yet, despite this discovery, my heart still whispers that it is not enough. There is always room for more pens, more paper, more organisational tools. The allure of a fresh start, symbolised by pristine school supplies, is simply too powerful to resist.
The Chaos of Back-to-School Shopping
However, the last week has not been the ideal time for a leisurely stationery excursion. Officeworks and similar stores have been transformed into battlegrounds, filled with harried parents—mostly mothers—frantically ticking items off lengthy back-to-school lists. The air is thick with stress and the occasional outburst, such as, "Why can't you use last year's textas?"
Come on, Mum. Everyone knows that starting a new school year with a set of gnarly, chewed-up textas is practically impossible. It is an unwritten rule of childhood. Next, you will be suggesting that a half-sucked glue stick or last year's completely unused protractor is still serviceable. Nonsense! A brand new protractor, destined to remain untouched for another year, is absolutely compulsory.
So, despite my printer screaming for cyan cartridges, I wisely avoided the stationery store chaos. It was simply not the moment for an innocent shopping trip.
A Nerdy Love for School Returns
I will be honest with you: I adored going back to school. Yes, I was a massive nerd, but there was more to it than that. Growing up on a farm with two older brothers, the first day of a new school year felt like a grand escape. I could not wait to board that school bus and embark on a fresh academic adventure.
I remember standing proudly in a slightly ill-fitting, handmade school uniform that my mum promised I would "grow into." My heart was full of hope, and my brand new school bag was meticulously packed and unpacked with all my shiny supplies. The centrepiece was always a collection of pencils—both lead and coloured—that my dad had carefully whittled with his pocketknife, creating a flat surface for my mum to write my name.
These pencils were stored in a pencil case with those iconic little slots for letter tiles to spell out your name. This design, however, posed a significant challenge for children with longer names. If your name was Madeleine or Genevieve, you were out of luck. The pencil case dictated a shortened version, like Gen. This might explain why so many Australians have carried abbreviated names throughout their lives. The pencil case had spoken, and its word was law.
The Magic of Book Covering
Another highlight of the back-to-school ritual was being sent home with a stack of exercise books that needed to be covered by the next day. For my mum, this task was likely spectacularly tedious, but to me, it was pure magic. I held the power to choose what would adorn the front of my books for the entire year.
The options were limited to brown paper and clear contact, with the only variable being the book labels from freebies in the Family Circle magazine. Horses or cars? The choice was obvious: horses, every time.
As I grew older, my mum adopted the "teach a man to fish" philosophy and showed me how to cover my own books. She would sit back, admiring her genius—or, more accurately, she would cook dinner, clean up, fold laundry, and tackle every other domestic chore. But crucially, she was not covering books with contact. For what it is worth, I genuinely enjoyed the process and could probably still do it with my eyes closed if my life depended on it. While such a scenario is hard to imagine, it is comforting to know I have that skill in my back pocket.
A High School Wake-Up Call
My first high school book list fulfilment experience left a slight scar. I queued with my mother in searing heat outside what was then known as the boys' gym at Mt Lawley Senior High School. It was the closest I have ever come to fainting. At one point, I felt as wobbly as an Australian Open ball kid and had to sit down with my head between my knees.
That moment was a stark realisation that high school would be a very different prospect. Yet, the smell of new books and the promise of a fancy calculator helped ease the pain and excitement of the transition.
Wishes for the New School Year
If someone in your life is heading back to school this week, I wish them all the best. May there be no bubbles in their contact, may their textas be brand new, and may they never have to use their protractor. Seriously, what is that thing even for?
The back-to-school season is a time of chaos, nostalgia, and fresh beginnings. Embrace the magic, stock up on stationery, and remember the simple joys of a new pencil case.
