Kindergarten and more childhood memories
I wore the blue frock on my first day of school. Well, that’s actually a lie. I had started school at age three: Saint Mary’s Convent School in Kasauli, India.
But this, this was even more novel than that actual first day in the sugar pink block pocked with windows that was St. Mary’s. I had always known those kids in Kasauli; their brothers and sisters and houses and parents were as much a part of my life as my toys were. Our unity was solidified in gray and maroon uniforms, in shoes so polished they glowed in their blackness.
It was on my first day of kindergarten in Rockville, Maryland that I donned the blue dress. The dress was a silky blue, as slippery and bright as any imaginary fish; a frock in the true fashion of the Indianized Western style that typified little girls’ clothing in New Delhi. In front, the white bodice and skirt aimlessly sketched blue lilies. Patches of solid sky in the shape of beetle wings draped across the back and sides of the skirt. Another pair of beetle wings, on the verge of opening and taking flight, acted as sleeves. The dress hung loosely from my shoulders, not constriction or hampering in any way simply because it was too large.
Looking through albums and memory, I wonder how such a dress could exist. How could so much elegance and so much kitsch be hemmed into one article of clothing? So over-decorated, would it not simply collapse like a cake that was frosting and nothing more? But this is not what I was thinking of, on that first day of school, in an entirely brand new dress, in a entirely brand new country. I was thinking of my hair, barely reaching my ear lobes, and just washed. It was still wet, marked with the comb my mother had pulled through it. I was thinking of the black hair clips that, in my eyes at least, resembled fuzzy caterpillars. I was glad for their familiarity.
The dress felt as new as the plastic Little Mermaid lunchbox I carried, the one my mother had found somewhere in a grocery store. How she knew I would need a lunchbox, I will never know. The idea must have been as foreign to her as the idea of blue eyes was to me.
The school bus in its yellowness looked as new as the lawns, spread like green welcome mats in front of each house. I didn’t see any of the other children, any of their smiles or words; I could have been alone on that bus with its dull green seats.
But I remember walking into the classroom, seeing my teacher, with her staircase of countless hoops and studs climbing up each ear, and her curly brown hair. And the kids, dressed in denim and plain solid colors, eyed me like a tropical fish that had entered their frigid coast.
Our relationship never did move past that look.
But this, this was even more novel than that actual first day in the sugar pink block pocked with windows that was St. Mary’s. I had always known those kids in Kasauli; their brothers and sisters and houses and parents were as much a part of my life as my toys were. Our unity was solidified in gray and maroon uniforms, in shoes so polished they glowed in their blackness.
It was on my first day of kindergarten in Rockville, Maryland that I donned the blue dress. The dress was a silky blue, as slippery and bright as any imaginary fish; a frock in the true fashion of the Indianized Western style that typified little girls’ clothing in New Delhi. In front, the white bodice and skirt aimlessly sketched blue lilies. Patches of solid sky in the shape of beetle wings draped across the back and sides of the skirt. Another pair of beetle wings, on the verge of opening and taking flight, acted as sleeves. The dress hung loosely from my shoulders, not constriction or hampering in any way simply because it was too large.
Looking through albums and memory, I wonder how such a dress could exist. How could so much elegance and so much kitsch be hemmed into one article of clothing? So over-decorated, would it not simply collapse like a cake that was frosting and nothing more? But this is not what I was thinking of, on that first day of school, in an entirely brand new dress, in a entirely brand new country. I was thinking of my hair, barely reaching my ear lobes, and just washed. It was still wet, marked with the comb my mother had pulled through it. I was thinking of the black hair clips that, in my eyes at least, resembled fuzzy caterpillars. I was glad for their familiarity.
The dress felt as new as the plastic Little Mermaid lunchbox I carried, the one my mother had found somewhere in a grocery store. How she knew I would need a lunchbox, I will never know. The idea must have been as foreign to her as the idea of blue eyes was to me.
The school bus in its yellowness looked as new as the lawns, spread like green welcome mats in front of each house. I didn’t see any of the other children, any of their smiles or words; I could have been alone on that bus with its dull green seats.
But I remember walking into the classroom, seeing my teacher, with her staircase of countless hoops and studs climbing up each ear, and her curly brown hair. And the kids, dressed in denim and plain solid colors, eyed me like a tropical fish that had entered their frigid coast.
Our relationship never did move past that look.