When I Awoke to the Notion of Being a Writer

Last week I unpacked a box that had my very first short story, written when I was in sixth grade. My mother had kept it. She didn't keep everything each of the four of us did; she kept the things that stood out.  "Rita" was the name of the story, and there was a picture of a dark-skinned girl with long dark braids and clothes that were too big for her. When I read it, a memory flooded back with such pain, that I had to stop.

Then I marveled at what I had done, and I remember that this was the year I thought I would be a writer. My first poem was there, too.

Loneliness
The old man walked out of his shack.
Surveying land and sky
He smiled.
A lone eagle circled into view,
Wheeling and soaring with joy.
It dove out of view.
The old man stood still for a moment.
Scanning the sky again,
He sighed.

And sighing again, he walked in.
(1964)


I remembered our teacher had assigned us to write as many different poems as we could in two weeks, and to include them in a booklet of poetry we liked. I thumbed through and found I had written seven more, but they were mostly an exercise in learning how to use a Thesaurus.  My teacher had written "Oh, my Jeannette. This is special" below that poem. And Mom had written "It is, honey" under that. She must have written that when she stored it away with my short story.

"Rita" was about two little girls in third grade. Our heroine, Annie, had befriended Rita when she entered school in November, wearing a thin skirt and blouse. She had no coat. Annie helped her when other kids laughed at her, worked with her on spelling and reading. Rita had trouble speaking English because she was from Mexico. Annie helped her all year, and gave her some of her own hand-me-down winter clothes because Rita's parents didn't have money. Rita moves away at the end of the story, and Annie says, "I always missed her after that. It was the one year where I wasn't lonely."

I had gotten an A+ for the story. No one ever asked me how I came up with such uncharacteristically somber stories, or questioned whether I was sad or anything.  But that story struck home, and to this day I remember vividly the true story... Susan Hoyt was the new girl. And it was, in fact third grade.

***
She stood in front of the whole class that November day, with Mrs. E telling us we all should feel sorry for Susan because she had foster parents whom she would talk to and set straight about sending her in with proper clothes.

"Now, Susan lift up your head and for Heaven's sake, get your hair out of your face." She got a barrette out of her desk and, not particularly gently,  fastened Susan's bangs out of her face. So now, Susan not only had on a very large puff sleeved blouse untucked, with a skirt that had slid to her hips, but she also had a wing of uneven hair sticking straight out of the left side of her head. The class giggled, but stopped with one look from Mrs. E.

I swear Mrs. E could have stopped a police car in the middle of a chase with that look.

"You know how it goes. I need a buddy to stay with Susan for lunch. Someone she can get along with. Jeannette, you seem a good match."  Mrs. E did not like me, and not many kids did, either. I didn't fit in anywhere, but mostly it was okay. Except when she had weighed me on a cattle scale with G.  We were so big, she said, it's what we should be weighed on. In front of the whole class.

That had backfired, though, because three girls thought that was so mean, they actually started hanging out with me again. They had in first and second grades, but in third grade, when I got kind of big, and mostly I didn't have clothes like them sometimes, they stayed away. But not now. Now they remembered I'd been their friend before, and they would play with me sometimes. The only girl who never deserted me was Paige and she and I played lots of times.

Still, sometimes at school--well, I knew what it was like a little bit for Susan. I didn't really mind being her buddy.  That was the beginning of a relationship that stayed with me the rest of my life. Susan was from Kentucky and her English was very odd. She hesitated when she spoke, and kind of hunkered down when she talked to adults, like dogs do when they are not used to people. I got assigned to work with her for spelling, for reading, and for arithmetic. I think it mostly got me out of Mrs. E's sight and she liked that.

I know she didn't like me because even though I got good grades she always wrote things like, "Jeannette just doesn't seem to play with the girls properly. She plays with the boys, playing kick ball instead of jump rope."  or "Jeannette must remember she cannot be the leader for everything. She must learn her place." Huh???

My mother didn't care for the comments and told me not to pay attention to them and just be myself. That was okay by me.

So Susan and I would work in the back of the room for the last hour or hour and a half of every day. It kind of made me mad sometimes because that was when we had art or music, so we missed it. After a few weeks, though, something changed and I decided that Susan and I were sisters at the soul.

My mom and Paige's mom had put together winter clothes for Susan and they FIT. Her foster parents, which my mom told me were parents that the government assigned for children who were alone, did not buy her anything it looked like. And along the way, five moms sent lunches in with their kids, for Susan, one for each day of school. Susan took to smiling sometimes and she was kind of pretty. I was jealous of her thinness, but one day she told me SHE wished she wasn't so thin. She never said more than a sentence at a time. It was too scary, I guess, but I wasn't sure why.

Until one day.

We were working on a story about a big brother being mean to his little sister and how he had to learn to be nice. After the usual struggle to learn the words, I had Susan read it aloud one more time and she did it perfectly. At the end it said, "And Timmy gave the puppy, his very favorite puppy, to Mary and said, 'Here, I think you should have this one,' and was never a bully to her again."

Susan started to laugh a little. I looked up at her quickly. "He wouln' do thet." And she gave a short, bitter laugh. I said, under my breath, "no kidding." We looked at each other straight in the eyes for the first time, sort of wide-eyed, like deer, and we both laughed until Mrs. E told us to shush.

And I began to pay attention to her more. Things were easier between us and we would joke once in a while, even.  Kids stopped picking on her. They ignored her, but, as I told her, "That's way better than when they notice we're different, you know? First they get used to you, and don't worry, eventually most of them get nicer."

About two weeks after that first story, we were deep into arithmetic. I was trying to show her the fast way to understand how to know the answer to her 9 + table, when the door opened with that nearly silent motion of air that said someone was sneaking in. Susan and I both jumped and turned to the door at the same time. Susan dumped her book on the floor.

Our principle said, "Girls. It's just me, for  Heaven's sake. I didn't want to disturb the class, but I guess it didn't work."

Everyone laughed but us. That's when I knew it. Neither of us liked that sound, the barest click as the latch button went into its part of the door, and that minute when the air enters just before trouble. Susan looked down and she was shaking.

I wasn't shaking on the outside and I just said, "no, Susan, it's safe here." She looked up at me and smiled and I smiled back, but I was sad. Sadder than when she'd stood in front of the class. Sadder than when the kids had teased her on the playground and Paige and I had brought her over with us to play our imaginary dinosaurs game, far away from the crowd. Sadder than when I realized she never had lunch.

When I went home that day and up to my room, I saw that the pull lock I'd put there had been taken off again. I sighed and went to see how Mom was. She was in her chair, half asleep, the glass of golden liquid on her side table. Dinner would be inedible again. "Is Daddy coming home?" I asked.

"No. He's away on business again." Right. That accounted for her, although sometimes it seemed as if there was no accounting for Mom.

Jean Ellen was at college, so I had my room to myself. A couple of my friends would say how lucky I was because they had to share with their baby sisters. Lucky. I guess.

Jack was as sad as I was at dinner and we looked at each other, lost. Mom had burned dinner but we always had to eat it anyway because "food didn't grow on trees." I think that year it may have been starving kids in Biafra, but I am not sure. I managed to avoid going to bed for a whole half an hour past my bedtime, but bedtime came.

About an hour after I was in bed, eyes wide open, the tears filled my eyes and I wondered if Susan was thinking of me, too, as I heard the too-quiet sound of the door opening, and felt the air attack me just before Jim did.

***
Susan moved away that year. My mom told me that she had been put with other parents because she had been hurt in that house. She sputtered about how anyone could hurt a child, and I remember just getting up and walking away.

By summer of that year I had forgotten all about opening doors. My sister came home. And the following year, for some reason, I took to taking a steak knife to bed with me, but I had blocked out the why of it all. For a long time, that door did not open again unless I opened it.  Which was pretty much the case for my memories of that year at home. I remembered only what I chose.

And in sixth grade I poured out the harmless part of the memory, but kept the loneliness I felt that was visceral and always there. It truly was the time when I decided I simply had to write. I had to. And I never stopped.

What about you? 

Was there a pivotal moment you turned to your art to express something deep inside? Was it a sparklingly beautiful time? That would be wonderful to read about.  I do not assume one has to suffer to write or paint or sing or dance or ANYTHING. But it was my moment.

I don't jump at the too small sounds of life any more, though. For which I am grateful beyond all words.