Kindergarten

Moira, or more accurately her little girl Plum, has me thinking about my first day of school. My mother walked me. Not far, two longish blocks, amid a gush of children. One of those ancient grade school buildings, with squeaky brown floors and institutional green painted halls of great immensity. All painted grey, then. A long flight of grand steps just inside the front entrance, tiny back door to the playground of fenced gravel. My granny had attended it for a summer, when it was an open-air day-school when she had been my age, around 1895, before the present building.

In class, on wooden floors, with a circle painted on it for us to sit around, we were asked our names, one by one. I stood up and spelled mine out. It's a long, bastard-French last name, and I remember the look on the teacher's face - astonished, although I can't remember what her face looked like. I felt a mixture of pride, and shame at my quite unintentional showing off. Only today did I realize what I was doing, modeling my parents who when asked for their last name usually simply spelled it. I did what I thought was expected, with all my might. My parents told me to stand when I answered a question, and that I had to write the number 2 with a proper loop, spelling my last name just seemed to me to be part of what was required.

I knew I was prepared otherwise, because I could read my older brothers' first and second grade readers.

The smallest girl in class felt ill while we later sat in the circle, so I had her lay her head in my lap.

I walked by myself the second day, and from then on.


走开。 我每次将报告您。

Started in Catholic school in 3rd grade, due to my own parish church school's gradual closure, and attended another only when it closed completely.

Linguini

The Expectant Look, that says, "Well, you know what I want."

"No, what do you want?"

"Do I have to explain everything?"

I opened the door, and after much paw shaking he went out on the balcony for a minute, then came back in.

"No, that wasn't it."


I drifted out of a dream into a memory of a high school trip to Toronto. For reasons never completely clear to me, the planned excursion to a play fell through, to my great disappointment.

Instead we were taken to a relatively upscale restaurant. Upscale to a bunch of poor to moderate income Catholic kids. An unplanned expense, and a large group. Probably half or more of the score of us had never been in such a place, and did not know the custom. I struggled with the menu, and the waitstaff were not interested in us enough to be helpful. Not surprisingly, my linguini with clam sauce (aside from the clam bit, I had no idea what I was going to get, and the lack of obvious clam confused me) arrived late, and cold. I ate it because I was hungry, I was paying for it (calculating the cost exactly from the menu price, the cheapest item) and couldn't imagine what else I could do, like walk out.

Peer pressure in it's purest form, groupthink among the inexperienced. We had no concept of restaurant tax, automatic tips for large parties, the indifference (or antipathy) of waiters to students en mass, ordering. Complaining about bad, cold food in that confusion would have been less than useless.

The obvious followed. The bill added up much higher than planned, none of us had sufficient extra cash, and the chaperones wound up paying the tax and tip, and threatening to get the money out of us all later. (Which never actually happened.) I remember thinking at the time, 'this was your idea, your kind of treat, and I actually want my money back you idiots.'

The next evening, a bunch of us wandered off by ourselves and got a very nice, cheap, meal at a hole-in-the-wall Italian place, downtown on Yonge* Street (hey, we were from Detroit, seemed perfectly lovely to us.)

(Warming up after.)




*Known at the time as a rough area, not too far off from say, The Mission in San Francisco. Not bad exactly, but not a place for a bunch of teens to go wandering. Unless they happen to be from a worse neighborhood.

Human

*
Thinking about those who knew me during my metamorphosis from abused child to bewildered adulthood gives me pause. Lots of awkward pauses. I have no idea how I looked then, so wrapped up in the shreds of my cocoon, fitful attempts not to be shy, angry and ugly and whiny, but also curious and intelligent and radiant with youth and health and hope. Lovely and off putting, intentionally dumpy and urgently sensually needy. All oatmeal with thistles.

I ate terribly, ramen noodles and stolen chocolate bars and cola from where I worked. Malnourished and sore most of the time. Excuses for every failing. Achingly lonely and aching for solitude. Friends with anyone who didn't out-and-out rebuff me. Inchoate dreams listlessly driving me. Ill, raw and inadequate, I focused only on keeping my grades up - to sustain the scholarship. I worked very hard, but not at all well. Wallowed in adolescent fantasy of my parents' death, gothic loss, and hollywood starshine.

Perhaps that path lead the only way out of my fuckedupedness. That muddy, lonely and self-destructive road held the lessons for the skills I needed. Four years of self-directed psycho analysis mixed with pragmatic behaviourism. The Army became my charm school. Nursing school to finish me off. The OR to harden my Crème brûlée. Each new day to age and mellow me.

Maybe that's the real reason a hard science curriculum eluded me. I needed to work on my humanity.



*gods I look like my mother in this photo

Uniformity

Really thought I'd written about uniforms before, but if so I can't find a single essay on it here.

I am most comfortable in a uniform, starting with the navy blue of Catholic school. Other kids complained, but I adored having a set way of dressing for the day, no question, and not up to my mother. I didn't have to chose from what little clothing I had that I generally did not like - cheap and ill fitting, pastel and polyester knit. It was that era. My mother made some of my clothes, which were mostly pretty good, a dark blue wool school jumper (pinafore), a yellow a-line dress, a maxi in flowered blue cotton - the last not allowed except at home. At least at school, I looked like everyone else, in terms of clothing. One less subject to be harassed about.

High school uniform color was brown, not attractive, but again, predictable and not my fault. Good enough.

Theater meant no actual uniforms, but dance clothes and second hand ragged filled a similar function. The army BDU was a joy, down to buttons and the way the boots were laced, we dressed the same. Funny how personality is clearer when the clues of fashion and taste in clothing is erased. More uniforms in nursing school, then scrubs in the OR provided by the hospital.

Clothing does matter to me, mostly because I've always had to go cheap, and always felt inadequate, not to mention uncomfortable. Or guilty, if I wore something more expensive, from the few times that I have had the income to use on something better. Uniforms comfort me, since they absolve me of responsibility for how I look.

And it's not trivial. Battles have been fought over clothing choices. It took legal dress reform to release women from pounds of petticoats and constricting corsets. It's never just warmth and protection from the elements, it always expresses how we interact with the world, however utilitarian. Whether we choose to fit in or stand out, expose ourselves or hide, or try to balance, colors or blands, t-shirts with messages, jeans or skirts or utilikilts. And that's not even getting into hair, which is another ball of fuzzy wax.

Segregation

Over at Millard Fillmore's Bathtub the question of same sex classrooms has been raised. The main proponent seems to have gotten his political cart before his scientific horse. It's a glaring, visible and splashy idea to apply to the seemingly insoluble difficulties of really educating a huge, diverse young population on a shoestring. Let's not worry about discipline, poverty, class size, poorly trained, paid or supported teachers, crumbling buildings, and small minded curricula. Just put the boys in one class and the girls in another, and poof! Problem solved. Gosh, wasn't that easy. And Separate But Equal is reestablished! Oh, no, really, we will treat them all exactly the same?

All catholic schools for me past second grade. I never had a particular problem with boys, although they were more rough in play, they never threatened to beat me up or pull my hair, never snickered every time I raised my hand. Wasn't until seventh grade that the boys joined in to tease me mercilessly. They were loud and disruptive, but girls were more likely to be unable to close their own mouths. Seemed mostly a wash to me, even then. Children were just awful, and I couldn't wait to be away from them.

The real difference came in the teacher. I loved the ones who kept an ordered class, never letting the chaos erupt. The ones who then could inspire and tell stories that stay in my mind to this day. The ones who were clear and kind and strong.

Now, uniforms, that is a good idea. Especially for a poor family. Gives all the students an inanimate common enemy.

For many years, I have thought the never-will-be-done answer was to have storefront schools. One room schoolhouses, two teachers and a local adult volunteer, no more than a dozen students, all online classes - a national, self paced, curricula. Touring experts and scholars for special lectures and demonstrations. Kid has a problem with a particular teacher, move 'em to the next neighborhood over. Walking distances from their homes, field trips common (easier to arrange with small groups), flexible schedules (let the teens sleep in). A circle of homeschools in rural areas instead of warehouses to haul whole populations into.

Yeah, yeah, there can be sponsored team sports, and credits to families for music or art or individual athletics. Those schools can become colleges and libraries and social meeting space. Clubs and dances and charities coming out their ears if they want.

It'll never happen, but it would work. If anyone cared enough to change everything.

Greenfield

Nearly every year, one school outing was to Greenfield Village. Living history, a time machine that worked as well as those things probably can. This year, our history teacher managed to get us the school house, where we had class that day. Dressing up wasn't mandatory, but was encouraged, not that it took much for me to go old timey. It was a cool, damp day, and I would love to have been able to stoke the wood burning stove, I knew what to do with a coal furnace after all. Mr. Esper laughed off the idea, as real children at that time would only have done that in winter, not just a tepid spring day. Probably right, too. I often fantasized about going back in time, wanting to be any otherwhere or otherwhen.

Such a geeky girl. Still am, come to that.

Rock

I shall not be joining into the Rock Flipping week. Not that I object to those who have a reason, experience, knowledge that will make that a meaningful exercise. But to expose the hiding creatures for my own amusement, not edification, not even curiosity, seems mean. Pohanginapete gets to the heart of why more eloquently than I can.

When I was in nursing school, in clinicals, I tended to not want to push in on patient care experience. I stood as far away as possible to observe, desperate not to intrude. Clinical instructors had to push me in, until I had an actual role. Then, I took deep breaths, entered with apparent confidence and due humility. There to offer assistance, I still will leave an OR with too many people 'helping' if I do not have a real task.

Living at home, in particular the post pubertal years of greatest tension and malice with my father, I hid in my room as much as humanly possible. He would still come shouting through the house, calling for me, until I answered. This was not just a matter of making sure I was home and safe. This was if he hadn't seen me downstairs for an hour, if he'd been out in the garage and come in, even after mom told him where I was. I feared and detested him, because I was dependent on him, subject to his orders, his pleasure in harassing me. Or perhaps, just that if he was anxious, then I must be. If he was angry, I was angry, and I had no right to be angry.

Had an anesthesiologist rip me a new one for a previously unstated personal preference that I was supposed to psychically know. He spent the rest of the day effusively buttering me up, assuring me that he wasn't mad at me, really.

Ah ha.

Jerk. Never occurred to him that I had seen what he was, and no, we weren't friends, sir. As though his feelings were all that mattered, and whatever he felt, I felt. And I would of course know how he felt.

In grade school, without a desk in my room, I studied at the dining room table. My father could not leave me alone, always talking to me, expecting a response, poking me in the ribs walking past, asking me for something from the kitchen, having me answer the phone beside him, because he was busy watching TV, then talking loudly when it turned out to be for him, after expecting me to talk with his brother for a while, or else I was being "rude." When the desk came to me, left behind from my brothers, I would pack up and go upstairs as soon as he came home, and he would assure me, "You're not bothering me, stay there."

Married one (ex) who thought me closing the bathroom door was a rejection of him.

I was thinking about this, because D keeps track of where Moby is. I have to remind myself that, well, this is different. We do want to make sure the cat is not stuck in a closet inadvertently closed. Sick cats hide. And, once found, we try not to disturb him. Still, I tend to not go looking for him on my own initiative.

Moby occasionally lies in the middle of the hall, where we have to step over him repeatedly. He looks up at us as if to say, "No problem, you're not bothering me." This is amusing. I don't have to wait for Moby to feed me.

D and I are very respectful of each other's privacy. If a friend tells either of us a story in confidence, we may allude to it, but there is no expectation of details, and both treat it with utmost discretion. He is guardian of my privacy. He asks before looking in my wallet, or opening a piece of mail for me. He has all my passwords, but always asks before using them. I would no more read his email than wear his shoes out. I have to keep nothing from him, because he would never assume. If I hid under a rock, he would make sure where I was, ask if I was ok, then sit nearby quietly.

You children, scientists, naturalists, folk of the woods and streams, you have a purpose, a right, a responsibility to flip stones. I shall let the things sleeping under rock lie. I have no good reason to bother them.

Am

Nurse, writer. Somehow, that combination would not have entered my mind when I was most often being asked that unanswerable question "what do you want to be?" I wanted to be an actress, with my own show, like That Girl. or the Brady Bunch, or the Waltons, or Nanny and the Professor. I was going to be very funny. I watched way too much TV, as many of my generation did. I took my examples of what I could be from there. And the people in my life that I liked.

Uncle Walt was a private pilot, or he had his license I should say. He was building a small plane in a garage in his back yard. I was young, and prone to carsickness, so I was promised a flight "later." Later never came, so I wanted to be a pilot. I'd have been awful, for a very short time. Not good with distances and three dimensional space, nor did I develop an eye for detail or thoroughness until I was in my 30s. I might be a decent pilot now, but I've lost the urgency for that. And a lovely man I dated at a short but critical moment of my life who took me up in his small plane, redeemed the promise.

I wanted to be a ballet dancer, of course. Those inexpensive classes at Patton Park were more my mother's dream, but I am glad of them. Even if my hip is a bit screwy for it. My feet were already twisted, makes no difference. Never good with choreography, not quite flexible enough, nor anywhere near determined enough. I enjoyed the rhythmic movement, the sense of ease and accomplishment, the exactitude of ballet. We even had an elderly gentleman who came in to play piano for our 20 or so eight-year-old little girls plie-ing. ("Colored Gentleman" my mother would say, intended as respectful and polite. And it was, then.) Those huge mirrors in the dance room are probably why I still love gazing into a mirror. And now so enjoy these "photobooth" images.

I loved art history, and a high school art teacher put me in for a scholarship for that major. I shied away from college, a 3.8GPA, Merit Scholarship, and I didn't feel smart enough for it. I did a radio broacast course, and got a job in Northwest Lower Michigan, hated the work, isolated and wretched. I was no good at all at patter. I had no small talk, then. Still a skill I have to put a lot of energy into, and I tend to get very offensive with anyone trite, if I drop my reticence. (Chatting to comfort a patient is another set of skills, entirely. Which also took me practice. )

No, when I went to college, it was for acting. I didn't quite realize that acting and Theater are distinct. Theater programs are for plays and memorizing dialogue, and musical theater. Acting, for me, was about TV and movies, telling stories, voice acting, characters. There is certainly overlap, but not for me. It was good therapy, I needed it. But as an actor, auditioning and singin' and dancin'... I was going to starve. Not to mention I am not photogenic. Not pretty by Hollywood standards. Not interested in NY nor LA. I'd never quite realized it was a business.

I wanted to be a massage therapist. Everyone told me I should, I have a talent, what I call pain magnets on my fingers. I was most of the way through an apprenticeship (Massage colleges were just starting to be available.) Finishing my clinical hours, I was propositioned. I backpedaled furiously, and really looked at it for the business that it is. I have no talent at all for business. I was too far from the only places that would have hired me, and I was not about to go alone and start up a storefront shop.

About that time, I joined the National Guard, and decided to quit mucking about, buckle down, and do whatever was necessary to have a marketable skill, that still allowed me to touch people. I set my sights on a BSN. Army style, until I came to my senses.

Nursing seemed the perfect choice for a generalist like myself. A pragmatic decision, nothing romantic at all. I'd done a lot of the jobs that my patients would have. I could talk about anything. I could learn the rest. I'd enjoyed hearing stories, and random people always told me intimate stories. I explained concepts well, and I had good touch, I was calm in the midst of crisis. I found I liked the hard sciences I'd feared before, or was too lazy to apply my mind to after high school.

And surgery? One patient at a time, protocols so I didn't have to not only do my work, but also figure out what my work was. No ironing uniforms, work in PJs. At least two doctors responsible in the room, cool stuff to watch, toys and tech galore, very little math. No patient or family lying to me, no pile of pills to give out three times a day, no underlings who I have to supervise, I'm no more a supervisor than an entrepreneur. And when I went home at the end of the day, there was nothing left hanging over my head for the next day. When I passed off my room, I would not see that case again, and usually not see that patient again. Very freeing.

Perfect? Hardly. But a pretty good match for my abilities and deficits. I've learned more than I could have imagined.

And writer? Well, actually I always assumed I would write a book someday, when I'd lived a bit, had some stories to tell, had some perspective. When I imagined myself in my sitcom, I thought about how it hung together, motivation, consistency, continuity, retelling it over and over in my head. Not bad practice. The problem I'm still wrestling with is the heart of writing, conflict. I like boring, means nothing is going wrong. Life is quite hard enough with out badguys. I don't want to write about the nasty people in my life. They are not funny. Not yet.

I have learned to organize, streamline, listen acutely, perservere, keep working. I'm not lazy anymore. Not about the hard stuff, anyway. I know if I get the tedious and difficult done, I can sit and dither. Enlightened laziness.

Oo. There's a self help book in that phrase alone.

Thanks

I am grateful beyond words for all of your kind words. Especially after I realized I'd been counting a 600+word segment twice. I have a soft spot for limericks. Thank you, thank you so much.

So, my question. What are the hardest reasons to give thanks? I had a fellow student that I had been slighting of, tell me that she might not be smart, but it hurt her feelings when I cut her off and ignored her, rolled my eyes and sighed when she talked. I was in ninth grade, but I got it. I will always be grateful to her for calling me on my meanness. I still feel badly about how I treated her, but I did listen. I did learn.

Another fellow student called me on always feeling ill, having a bad day, always excusing myself for not being prepared or for leaving early. He prodded me to begin a long, long, hard journey into my own misery and out the other side. Eventually. The other students thought he was being mean. Hurt as I was, I defended him. He was right, after all.

I'm grateful that my parents put me through catholic school. Not easily, not really affordable for a factory worker laid off, then hired as a groundskeeper for a cemetery. I was offered a great education, and was cured of Catholicism at the same time. I will always be thankful, education is never wasted.

Cover

I once looked forward to the parent teacher conference days.  I'd hear what a good, quiet, intelligent girl I was. But in fourth grade, I hit a wall. Worse, I never heard the whistle, nor saw the lights, never even realized I was standing on the tracks, when Reality slammed me down.  Pummeled and splintered me like a small rag doll, I was sobbing shockily.

"She has not been turning in her math homework. I'm afraid she does not know her multiplication tables.  I want her in the lower track."

No, not in with the run of the mill fourth and fifth graders, I panicked. I read at a high school level. Likewise science and social studies. So what that long division went way over my head?  I'd ignored the arithmetic I had no skill for, no understanding of.  I'd thrown away my homework. Simple. Problem solved.

"Did you think this would go away? That I wouldn't find out?"  Mom.  As angry and incredulous as I had ever seen her.  Well, in as much as I thought at all, I'd assumed that long division and times tables would be over after a week or so (like the industrial exports of Michigan) never to be needed again.  But.  No.  Numbers were not going away.  Realization imploded. The hot, wet shame of being caught, of being wrong, of being stupid, swelled up and made my belly ache.

My brother's old index cards were dug out, and I filled them with  numbers separated by Xs.  I felt stung by this abrupt slide down the ladder. I felt the sting in my hands. My chest felt bruised, breathing was hard. My head hurt, hard bumped. I hated that Mom's hand was on my back, forcing me upwards, brooking no slumping. Every evening, all weekend, she tested me, over and over. I even dreamed reciting the six times, seven times, eight times eight equals sixty... four?

I ground my teeth, enduring the half & half fourth and fifth grade readers lurching through stories I'd read the first week.  Struggling to  get the numbers straight in math class,  I lived in stinging, shaming, despairing tears.  I railed against the waste of being held back in my other classes, just because of times tables unmemorized. I so yearned to be back with the mostly fifth graders. I hated the bullygirls who considered it justice that I'd been taken down a notch.  Adding "crybaby" to the taunts I'd mostly kept my head below, before.  

With great resentment, I stuffed those cursed tables into my brain.  Only when I'd multiplied my age a few times would I value them as study skills. I studied hard, then, only to build up a shell of knowledge to keep them away from me, parents and teachers and bullies alike. I vowed to never be caught out again.  I would be perfect, beyond rebuke, would keep every picky rule they could dish out, and keep subversion in my heart.

Math

There is this TV show called Numb3rs, featuring a mathematician who is smart, sexy (stop laughing), and consults for the FBI. I so get this. I had a crush on my college algebra TA, and his endearing Oklahoma twang. I was 28 (I'd avoided anything requiring math when I was a Theater student.) Probably a few years older than him, so stop thinking dewey eyed Freshman. I crushed on him in no small part because he barely took points off for dumb arithmetic errors, as long as the equations were correct, and I got a hard earned B+ from him for the final grade. He made story problems easy, the only way to approach mathematics. And he made the distinction between arithmetic and mathematics.

One Friday, when half the class didn't bother to show up, he shared his passion. He demonstrated a proof on the board, coming alive. And I got it. Oh, I could never go there again without a map and a guide, but I could follow him, it made sense, it flowed. Like listening to my Uncle Walt talk about aerodynamics or building stresses. Or our engineer friends talking computers. Or K talking the chemistry of making computer chips. I'm always enamored of deep, loving knowledge, and being given a tour of a different view on the world.

So, why isn't Mathematics, proofs and rationale, taught in grade school? Seems to me essential, the grammar of math, and much more logical than language rules. I loved Geometry in grade school, because there were few numbers, mostly words, and lots of constructions.

I don't see numbers in my head, like I do words and letters. I cannot add up a column of numbers the same way twice. Which went critical in my statistics class. The instructor (I did not have a crush on her) had us manage 20 or so data point numbers as a quiz, five minutes at the beginning of every class. I could apply the equations, if I could have ever gotten through adding up the initial data in five minutes. A classmate tipped me off to the disabled student union. Blessed be, I took my quizzes there, to take as long as needed, number help. Sitting there waiting for a kind counselor to come check my arithmetic, I remembered my oldest brother trying to teach me numbers. Asked me what they looked like. He incited me to give them personalities. Three was angry, five was grumpy, and eight was heavy and stubborn. The numbers, especially those three, writhed and twisted, like letters for a dyslexic. Dyscalculia. All my stupidity in math became clear.

I took me a long time to learn to read a clock. I ignored my long division assignments, until I was caught, and had to learn my multiplication tables. I shied away from numbers, knowing I didn't get them. I wanted to study Meteorology, go chase storms, but knew I'd need a lot more math than I was prepared to handle. Such a timid twit I was.

Just as dyslexia does not rule out reading, my numeral confusion still slows me, but no longer stops me. See that RN behind my name? Yeah, well. But I don't do Pediatrics, because every dose has to be calculated to weight. I know my limitations. I just know to be careful, check, get others to check after me. I do the Soduku as number therapy. My most common mistake is not seeing a numeral properly. I can tell when I am very tired, I do much worse. I still puzzle it out in pen.

I'm terrible at names, too. I wonder if it's related.

Fail

Mr. Shirkey laid the paper face down on my desk, saying, dramatically.

"Oh, how the mighty have fallen."

I turned over the lab report on the worm dissection, and was slightly relieved that it was only a D, since I figured I'd deserved an F. I'd had no idea what I'd been looking at at all. I filled in the answers with nothing like a real answer, a muddle, which was all I could see. Anything under the microscope was a blurred mystery. This despite having glasses by the time I was 15, sophomore year. Despite being a straight A student in high school.

Oh, I'd gotten Cs in 7th grade typing, pity grades, since she saw I really tried, but never could get my fingers to do as dib. bod. bid. In lower grades I had occasional Bs in maths, related to numbers turning in my brain from 3 to 5 to 8 and back, which I only figured out in college statistics class (dyscalculia.) Generally, I did well in school, with enough effort to have good study habits.


For non-acedemics, if I figured I was not going to be pretty competent, I would withdraw fairly soon. Violin bruised my chin, and I couldn't finger the strings, did that about a month. Flute I managed one song, the tone never sounded good, that was maybe two months. Rented instruments, nothing much lost. My father thought that the trick to a good life was being able to play an instrument. (He always thought there was a trick to any kind of success. He'd never managed the trick to it, so was where he was.) I was terrific at cutting my losses. I minded my mother telling me I lacked sticktoitiveness.

I failed to have her ironclad faith. Lost it when I was eight, if I'd ever had it at all. I wanted it, prayed for it. Eventually nitpicked that if Faith was a gift from God, and God hadn't seen fit to give it to me, what was I to do? I rather liked that St. Thomas made Jesus prove himself, and was bothered that his unbelief was disparaged. I now think that those who have faith are being cheated of their curiosity and most of their intelligence thereby.

My first marriage failed miserably, due in no small part to my general failure to make friends or lovers. When I learned to make friends, I realized just how badly I'd chosen a husband. I failed, for a year, to get myself out of that abusive relationship.

I'd been working at a survey research center, phone surveys. I came in for my shift. I looked at the phone. I looked at my survey. I looked at the phone. I cleaned everything with alcohol. I looked at the phone. I picked up the receiver. I put the receiver down. I did this for almost two hours. I picked up my knotted stomach, walked up to my supervisor, and told him I had to quit. I simply could not make another phone call, possibly ever again in my life. He nodded, made sure they had my correct address, and wished me luck.

I once worked for a famous dance teaching studio. I could teach dance well. That was not the issue. I would not lie to, nor pressure at every break in breath, my students to sign up for the most expensive dance class packages. They fired me.

I worked night shift as an aide at a nasty little nursing home, all psych patients, about half elderly. Two of the other aides who hated me said I'd pushed a patient. This was the same week I got into nursing school. The nursing supervisor fired me with one of those half assed, ever changing reasons. Afraid they would call my nursing school, I did not fight it, but left in exhausted tears, and indignant fury. Every doubt and fear overwhelmed me. I also failed to report the place, but I did not know enough then.

I took Anatomy 204. Great teacher, great class, I studied pretty well, I thought. Then the midterm appeared before me. Empty lines. Trace a drop of blood from the right ventricle through the right kidney to the liver naming all vessels and organs. List all the muscles, the nerve artery and vein involved in raising your left arm. The following Monday, when the test was passed back, I took a peek, then took myself to the nearest restroom stall, and sobbed. I would get an A on the final, and take the class again, for the A for the class.

In nursing school, I failed daily. I rarely made the same mistakes twice, but I found new ones constantly. So, I was never snotty about asking for someone to check behind me. As a result, when I was in my senior clinicals, I was the one the my clinical instructor sent to the other floor, without her to watch over me, when there weren't enough precepting nurses.

"You'll be fine."

What she really meant was that I was reasonably competent, not cocky. I would ask anyone for help, without hesitation, without ego. She trusted me to neither jump off the deep end, nor stop in my tracks. I probably wouldn't kill anybody. I had learned how to fail, but keep going, turn it around.

I was new in surgery, maybe four months in. I scrubbed, and went to put on my sterile gown. Hit the sleeve on the (unsterile) light. (Damn, blast, idiot snarflebarble... .) Nurse took off my gown, so my hands were still sterile, got another gown, hit the light again. (Stupidstupidstupid... .) Again with the gown, third time in a row, again, I hit the sleeve of the gown on the light. I felt about this ( ` ) smart. I have never contaminated a gown putting it on since. This is the story I tell to newbies in the OR to this day.

"It gets better. Give yourself time, this is hard. Sometimes we forget."

I don't do everything well, but I keep trying. I still screw up numbers, but I double check them. I don't work under microscopes. Still can't play an instrument. I forget stuff. I get the thingmabob on the whatsit the wrong way, and have to redo it. I do not quit because a task is hard. I fall, and keep working until I get the job right. There is no trick to what I do right, save only practice, experience. And remembering, deep in my bones, when I am wrong.

"I screwed up. I am fixing it right now."

Well, hell, makes for a good story, if I tell it right.

Grey

I was at Mayfest at my university, stealing a guilty hour from finals study time to dither and shop the booths. Pottery, tie-dye t-shirts, save the animals and become a libertarian, come to the library, and have your fortune told. I opted for the last one in my ditherment. A young woman asked me what appealed, palm or cards, choosing stones in a bag. Hadn't heard about the stones, and so I closed my eyes, and picked out a half dozen. She read them for me, but mostly was amazed that every one was grey. She dumped out the whole of the bag, full of colorful stones. I was in the last throes of my "marriage" grinding out A's as my life depended on it, and felt very defensive about my choices. What was wrong with grey? The stones all felt pretty interesting. Still, I took it to my heart. I was wearing an oversize grey rayon jumper, large pockets, very comfortable, my daily uniform, rather shabby. I noticed how little color was in my closet. Camouflage.

I had won a soft grey stuffed rabbit at a church Easter party, guessing the number of jellybeans in a huge jar. Ecstatic, I'd never won anything, and for such a lovely critter. Older kids stole it from me while I waited for my mother to pick me up. The church committee found out and later gave me a bright yellow bunny to replace it. I'd loved the real looking one, and the soft grey fur. They thought they had gotten me a better one. I cried later.

In high school, I bought a skirt, pinwale corduroy, dark charcoal grey, long, slim. I felt so stylish in it. Unprecedented. My parents always complained when I wore it, too dark and severe they thought, not allowed when visiting relatives or for church, and I had uniforms for school. So, a few school dances, until my hips took a growth spurt, and it no longer fit. I have a shortish knit soft one now, discovered on sale, and very subtle, makes me feel daring and sensual.

I have had grey coats, and hats, all soft. Grey to me is comforting, or very sophisticated, elegant. Cool, neutral and natural. Grey is what I wear for myself, to feel solid and certain. I like to think angels wear grey, dark heather charcoal grey, gently flowing, walking in our midst.

Teacher

Mrs. Baumgartner. She looms large in my second grade class, a kind woman who prided herself on skipping rope in class, despite her age. I don't know how I felt about it at the time, oddly enough. Perhaps very deeply buried in my mind is the assumption that play is not just for children. Her self consciousness about it implies that she had been taught that it was wrong, and rebelled. I didn't see it that way as a second grader, and I never worried about looking foolish playing. I skipped with D at Fort Carson as we were falling in love, he needed encouragement, but I had never stopped skipping. Turns out, he just can't skip.

Teresa Kowall, taught a children's ballet class at Patton Park in Detroit, small or nonexistent fees were charged. I would've been 7 when I started, ugly saggy tights and leotards, dyed -we were told- from a far uglier color. I tried so hard, strived, wanting to dance, to do it right. Miss Kowall instilled a sense of discipline a love of movement. Once, she danced for us. It seemed impossibly beautiful, that something human could be so perfect. I still love the feel of a moment of gracefulness, of synchronization with another, of rhythm, elegant competence. I remember her, and that cold room with all the mirrors, as the beginning of skill.

Mrs. Zelinski, sixth and seventh grade, she got us all fired up about science. Taught out of her head, so alive and funny and challenging. Then I caught her in a lie, or at least an error that she would not question herself about. I had been to a nuclear plant, on a tour over the summer with my Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Ernie. Heard about Heavy Water, an isotope used in cooling towers. I pretty much understood what it was. I asked her about it, possibly because I was beginning to doubt her exuberant style. She said it was mineral laden water. I tried to explain what I had understood, but she stood by her idea as if it were the only possible fact. I came to distrust information dressed up in enthusiasm, she inadvertently taught me that, as well as an excitement for science. Doubt is vital.

Mr. Esper told stories. And taught history as stories. He loved tactics and strategy and the personalities of history. He talked about being a fire jumper in the summer, so I wanted to do interesting, worthwhile jobs. Mr. (Mark?) Novak taught social sciences in high school, but began the morning with the weather. Drew a map of the US on the board and talked pressure systems. When we had a tornado, he described himself as looking like a "butterfly in heat" chasing to all the windows. Such delight in danger appealed to me, even though I was frightened of everything then, I did not want to always be. Courage as virtue, stories as life, and to look up the NOAA site every morning. I think they would both be proud of me.

Mr Howard Shirkey. Bless his funny soul. Odd, nerdy, bespectacled, balding even then, remembered all his students and where they sat in his class. Never called in sick, Ficus plants and tarantula spider, he taught biology and more to his sophomore classes. Used a read-along second grade level film strip to talk about Anton Von Leevenhook, who first identified animalcules with his microscope. I retained what he told, everything was anthropomorphized, told in both scientific and lay language. Perhaps that is where I get my facility for translating medical terminology into comprehensible terms. Mostly, I hold him dear in my heart for an indefinable, ephemeral lesson that will not sit still for words. And I know he remembers me, he told me so when I wrote to him a few years ago. He wrote back.

Many, many, my teachers come in droves, yet I could write on each of them. The task becomes impossible, the choice of who next overwhelming. The stagecraft teacher, Blair Anderson, who once dropped both cigarette and chalk talking about fasteners, and made us tie ropes around our final to demonstrate knowledge of knots. Don MacDonald who showed me how to communicate with clay on a wheel. Sharivar who is a bellydancer, and a subtle teacher of same. Liz Herald, dry, sarcastic, caring, who has an immense nursing knowledge base, and wants you to know it all as well, preferably five minutes ago. I diminish them by putting them in thumbnail sketches, for they have all touched me and left their mark. Impressions that I treasure and cultivate, to honor them, yes. To become more myself, and in turn to pour out on others.