Imitation of Life

It's always said that a writer's first work has to be autobiographical. A first time out at the keyboard is almost always an attempt at some kind of catharsis for the writer, a way and means to analyze and hopefully lay to rest whichever demons might he hanging on the hooks in the closet. It's no different for little girls.

I've made a note of my little arch-enemy a few times. She is the ringleader, the stealthful troublemaker, the girl who doesn't care about teachers or classwork or anything but her little crew, the latest fashions and what new songs are on the radio. Then I read the scenes in the script she has been conceptualizing from the day one, a story of a rich little girl living in a gated community building between three rough blocks of Brooklyn. Her parents never have time for her, the both of them more focused on their new marriages and individual lives. Her friends at school matter the most to her because there's very little at home but the butler. I'm sure the picture's forming in your head too.

Kids will tell you everything if you ask the right questions. The other day I had to calm a little girl down because she's gotten in trouble for talking in class and her mother had been called. She was crying because her mother was known for "hitting hard", for beating her with whatever was around, including sticks, wire hangers and the like. She told me that hadn't committed the crime for which she was accused, but when I offered to write a note on her behalf as her after-school teacher she said it would only make things worse for her. My most talent and dysfunctional student called the new Dominican girl in the ESL section a lesbian as soon as she walked in the door, mainly because she's prettier than her, stays out of trouble and ignores the screams, tantrums and falling all over the floor that everyone else finds a way to tolerate.

A mother, tall and leggy, barely my age, sat in the school office waiting for her son to complete his in-house suspension, complaining that they could have gone to see Iron Man together if he hadn't gotten the silly idea to come to school. She openly admitted to a teacher that she didn't know how to teach her son how to study so she hoped that the school would do it for her. The same went for the mother who dropped her ADD daughter into our program thinking it would solve all problems. The girl can't focus long enough to complete a single worksheet in 90 minutes.

I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir, but as my tenure as instructor slowly creeps towards its end I'm reminded of all the things that I pushed to the back of my brain in trying to get through the day to day. Most kids aren't born bad on their own. School merely becomes their canvas for all the things they can't explain about home.
That doesn't excuse their behavior, as they definitely know better, but it does remind me of something one of my sister's teachers said to me on that boat ride Friday night.

He reminded me that most people don't get a chance to choose the life they want. They just let things happen. The drills that I was given about condoms and lubricant, fights, crime and the like, were a preparation that most boys my age went without. Hell, my Pops ended up giving about as much advice to my boys as he did to me. Our house is often a safe haven for the friends of hours without the same kind of structure. As I believe that I chose my parents before I got here, I can say that I made a good choice.

As we approach the month of May I can't believe that I've gotten this far, that I've found ways to endure all that's been thrown at me, from the snack thieves to an indifferent administration, to a school that functions more as an internment camp than anything else. I've never seen student who will say they don't have anything to write with and then reach into their bag to pull out a pen. When I ask why they didn't do that in the first place they've said on more than one occasion that it was too much work. Oh how the children are our future.

I'm getting ideas for more things that I want to do creatively. But as usual the question is going to be funding. As I didn't get a grant I applied for, I have to see who I can talk into writing me a check for doing something that no one has done before. My life story, right? But I'm good with it, as I hope that at least a few of the things I do might survive my lifetime, that when the dust clears, the folks whom I least expect to will remember whatever little marks I made on the world.

I bought a little stuffed Penguin for my goddaughter. I'm sending it in the mail today. My plan is to send her one once a year until she graduates from junior high, a little something for her to remember, a tangible piece of my love for the baby I saw in my dreams, my little Eskimo girl on the road to taking her first steps. I am so proud. I am so humbled. I can't wait to see what she's going to learn next. Out.