(no subject)
I went running today, something I find myself doing increasingly often. There is something distinctly therapeutic about being forced to concentrate on your body instead of whatever happens to be going on. It's impossible to be particularly concerned with anything else when trying to work out a particularly stubborn side stitch. To enforce this idea, I rarely plan out my runs; I go where my legs take me. Today, I found myself looking at a building I hadn't seen in a good four years: my elementary school, Chatham Park. There was something settling about seeing it, for the most part unchanged from when I had walked it's halls 5 years previous, and "settled" is a feeling I have been noticeably missing this past week or so. Drawn by that powerful and comforting pull of memories, I ended up on the playground. It was amazing to look at it, once a place that had once seemed so vast and huge to my 4'6" self, but now surprisingly tiny to my 5’6”. I walked on the new pavement that covered what used to be the foursquare court and the giant Map of America we had played tag on, and part of me wondered if they were both still under all that new cement, waiting for some jaded sophomore to dig through the rock and come play as they had done so long before. I sat on the swings that had been new when I had been in school, had been the pride of the third grade class. For awhile, we refused to let the younger kids play on them, afraid they would get dirty, until someone went crying to a teacher and we got yelled at. They had once been a bright Crayola blue, but now bear the marks of hundreds of little hands and feet. Seeing them mangled as such still irked that third grade little girl in the back of my mind. I looked out at the baseball field where I'd learned to kick a ball, admittedly not very well; I scanned the monkey bars where, on the first day of kindergarten, I had hung, screaming, afraid that I would fall to the angry woodchips below me; finally, I meandered over to the fence where I had been pinned by an overly enthusiastic group of fourth and fifth graders, looking to watch my "wedding" to my fourth grade boyfriend, Hunter Bradley. He, of course, spent the entire ordeal hiding in the giant twisty slide, a life lesson about boys that would prove unexpectedly valuable later on. I slid down that very same slide, thinking about how it was still as fun as it had been when my legs were 2 feet shorter, but in a different kind of way.
But the most emotional marker of time on this playground for me was not a swing set, field or set of monkey bars; surprisingly, it was a tree. The Willow was planted when I was in second grade, and had been the handiwork of my second grade class. We had put the fledgling in the ground and it had, even then, barely come to my shoulder. I looked at in now, about the height of the school itself, and for some reason it made me want to cry, in that happy-sad way that good memories do. Part of me saw it as a testament to my growth as a person, my accomplishments, but the other part simply saw it as a great childhood already over, a childhood that I sometimes wish I could return to.
As I turned away, I took in the handful of soccer moms, sitting on benches and watching their children, enjoying adult conversation for, what I'm sure, was one of their few free moments. I thought, ironically, that these women were probably graduating college, maybe high school, when I was their children's age. At that moment, I felt a pull in two very opposite directions: I watched a mother rush over from her perch to sweep up a crying little boy and I unconsciously but immediately looked forward to the day that I will have kids of my own. Still, though, I wanted to be that crying child and know that my mother’s arms could heal any hurt imaginable. I suppose they still heal exactly as they did when I was 7, but the hurts seem so much more complicated now.
I'm sure I looked out of place to these women - a high school kid in running gear slowly tracing her steps around the playground - but who knows? Maybe they understood. Maybe they, having felt, at some point, that force pushing you to move forward, only wanted to go back. I half-hoped that one of them would stop me, ask me what I was doing, had I gone here, did I know so-and-so? I felt like I needed to explain myself. But no one did, and I kept walking.
I peeked in the window of my kindergarten classroom, a room that had changed even while I had gone to school there, but still made me think of shaving cream on the table, the Boxcar Children books and the box of plastic animals my teacher always kept in the back closet. I looked into the music room where I had learned, and promptly forgot, how to play the cello. I passed the door through which my parents had dragged me, shaking from fear and excitement on the first day of Kindergarten. I walked across the front lawn where there had been so many Field Days and May Fairs, and looked into the Cafeteria, where I could still see the mural that had been ancient when I ate my peanut-butter-and-jelly's there. I saw the shirt that my entire class had signed hanging on the wall, among a collection of similar shirts from classes before and after. It amazed me that I still felt more at home in a cafeteria built for people 2 feet shorter than me than I do eating lunch in a high school.
But it was not until continuing my window tour that I found the room that had probably meant more to me than every classroom, every lunch table, every individual lesson put together. It’s such an unusual place for a little kid to be sentimental about, and yet the library was where I had learned my first lesson, one of once-upon-a-times and happily-ever-afters. Under the kind tutelage of Mrs. Carper, the Librarian, I learned to love words. She would go through the new books they got in, pulling ones that she thought I would like from the shelves, saving them until she saw me. Every year, my personal point of pride was to win a Golden Apple Award, waiting giddily until my name was on the Top of the Reading Tree. But it wasn't just the books; more than anything, it was her patience, her kindness and her perseverance that made me want to listen to Mrs. Carper. She would sit on a stool by me as I scanned the shelves after school let out, looking for something to read that night, and ask me pointed questions about whatever story I had just finished. She never let me leave a book unread once I had begun it. It is because of her that, when faced with a difficult novel even now, I force myself to, however painstakingly, finish that paragraph, page, or chapter. But looking back, I suppose the reason that I so adored Mrs. Carper was that she was the first teacher, in a line of many, who supported and believed in me. I was scrawny and lanky, with knobbly knees and big glasses - the kind of kid even adults don’t find cute. But she didn’t care. And because she thought I could accomplish anything, I started to believe it, too. By the time I was 10, I was at least relatively comfortable in my skin, an accomplishment for any 5th grader. It is, of course, true that my confidence has been battered by the intermittent years, and there have obviously been millions of moments where I’ve doubted myself, but that early confidence became my first source of strength, and something that I have found invaluable. I learned a lesson that many of my peers would not learn until much later, or perhaps not at all. It’s strange to think that I understood true self-acceptance at 10, when it now seems so devastatingly abstract.
Isn’t it remarkable that one place out of the hundreds of thousands you visits in life can mean so much? Seeing something as simple as a room full of books opened a part of me that I realized had been closed for far too long.
As I started my run home, it seemed increasingly harder and longer than the run there had been. It seemed like my body was in agreement with my mind, and had wanted to stay on that swing or under the Willow forever. So I slowed to a walk, and indulged in the scenery of the streets that I had long forgotten. I knew I was heading home to watch a show on a TV station that I would never have been allowed to watch in elementary school, and as I walked, composing this in my head, I contemplated not watching it at all. But thinking about the whole experience, I felt like something had come full circle. The little voice of the little girl that I used to be seemed to say that it was okay to let go a little, to keep growing up. So even though I came home and watched MTV tonight, I didn't lose any of this experience. I’ve realized that maybe all I, all we, need to do to find our answers is look back - that maybe, in the end, that is what keeps us moving forward.
But the most emotional marker of time on this playground for me was not a swing set, field or set of monkey bars; surprisingly, it was a tree. The Willow was planted when I was in second grade, and had been the handiwork of my second grade class. We had put the fledgling in the ground and it had, even then, barely come to my shoulder. I looked at in now, about the height of the school itself, and for some reason it made me want to cry, in that happy-sad way that good memories do. Part of me saw it as a testament to my growth as a person, my accomplishments, but the other part simply saw it as a great childhood already over, a childhood that I sometimes wish I could return to.
As I turned away, I took in the handful of soccer moms, sitting on benches and watching their children, enjoying adult conversation for, what I'm sure, was one of their few free moments. I thought, ironically, that these women were probably graduating college, maybe high school, when I was their children's age. At that moment, I felt a pull in two very opposite directions: I watched a mother rush over from her perch to sweep up a crying little boy and I unconsciously but immediately looked forward to the day that I will have kids of my own. Still, though, I wanted to be that crying child and know that my mother’s arms could heal any hurt imaginable. I suppose they still heal exactly as they did when I was 7, but the hurts seem so much more complicated now.
I'm sure I looked out of place to these women - a high school kid in running gear slowly tracing her steps around the playground - but who knows? Maybe they understood. Maybe they, having felt, at some point, that force pushing you to move forward, only wanted to go back. I half-hoped that one of them would stop me, ask me what I was doing, had I gone here, did I know so-and-so? I felt like I needed to explain myself. But no one did, and I kept walking.
I peeked in the window of my kindergarten classroom, a room that had changed even while I had gone to school there, but still made me think of shaving cream on the table, the Boxcar Children books and the box of plastic animals my teacher always kept in the back closet. I looked into the music room where I had learned, and promptly forgot, how to play the cello. I passed the door through which my parents had dragged me, shaking from fear and excitement on the first day of Kindergarten. I walked across the front lawn where there had been so many Field Days and May Fairs, and looked into the Cafeteria, where I could still see the mural that had been ancient when I ate my peanut-butter-and-jelly's there. I saw the shirt that my entire class had signed hanging on the wall, among a collection of similar shirts from classes before and after. It amazed me that I still felt more at home in a cafeteria built for people 2 feet shorter than me than I do eating lunch in a high school.
But it was not until continuing my window tour that I found the room that had probably meant more to me than every classroom, every lunch table, every individual lesson put together. It’s such an unusual place for a little kid to be sentimental about, and yet the library was where I had learned my first lesson, one of once-upon-a-times and happily-ever-afters. Under the kind tutelage of Mrs. Carper, the Librarian, I learned to love words. She would go through the new books they got in, pulling ones that she thought I would like from the shelves, saving them until she saw me. Every year, my personal point of pride was to win a Golden Apple Award, waiting giddily until my name was on the Top of the Reading Tree. But it wasn't just the books; more than anything, it was her patience, her kindness and her perseverance that made me want to listen to Mrs. Carper. She would sit on a stool by me as I scanned the shelves after school let out, looking for something to read that night, and ask me pointed questions about whatever story I had just finished. She never let me leave a book unread once I had begun it. It is because of her that, when faced with a difficult novel even now, I force myself to, however painstakingly, finish that paragraph, page, or chapter. But looking back, I suppose the reason that I so adored Mrs. Carper was that she was the first teacher, in a line of many, who supported and believed in me. I was scrawny and lanky, with knobbly knees and big glasses - the kind of kid even adults don’t find cute. But she didn’t care. And because she thought I could accomplish anything, I started to believe it, too. By the time I was 10, I was at least relatively comfortable in my skin, an accomplishment for any 5th grader. It is, of course, true that my confidence has been battered by the intermittent years, and there have obviously been millions of moments where I’ve doubted myself, but that early confidence became my first source of strength, and something that I have found invaluable. I learned a lesson that many of my peers would not learn until much later, or perhaps not at all. It’s strange to think that I understood true self-acceptance at 10, when it now seems so devastatingly abstract.
Isn’t it remarkable that one place out of the hundreds of thousands you visits in life can mean so much? Seeing something as simple as a room full of books opened a part of me that I realized had been closed for far too long.
As I started my run home, it seemed increasingly harder and longer than the run there had been. It seemed like my body was in agreement with my mind, and had wanted to stay on that swing or under the Willow forever. So I slowed to a walk, and indulged in the scenery of the streets that I had long forgotten. I knew I was heading home to watch a show on a TV station that I would never have been allowed to watch in elementary school, and as I walked, composing this in my head, I contemplated not watching it at all. But thinking about the whole experience, I felt like something had come full circle. The little voice of the little girl that I used to be seemed to say that it was okay to let go a little, to keep growing up. So even though I came home and watched MTV tonight, I didn't lose any of this experience. I’ve realized that maybe all I, all we, need to do to find our answers is look back - that maybe, in the end, that is what keeps us moving forward.