The Idea of an Essay, Volume 3

Narrative & Memoir 55 eyebrows at the kids flying towards me and receding again on their swings, and at the others waiting in line for a cherished turn to see if any were noticing me. My writing was good. Mr. Peters, my adored English teacher who was the first person to tell me I was good at writing, always read my stories out loud to the class. “…and I’m thinking to myself, ‘this is better than some of the stuff I was writing in high school!’” The whispered words had floated carelessly out of Mr. Peters’ classroom during parent-teacher interviews to where I was sitting outside, and I recognized them as my English teacher’s words as he spoke to my mom. The other kids didn’t think of writing or reading as being fun, but they were to me, and they were something I was very proud of. I wanted to be noticed and recognized as the girl who reads at recess, or the girl who writes the best stories. To me it was a way of setting myself apart. I watched the kids playing grounders as they twisted themselves into absurd positions just to avoid the groping hands of the person who was “it,” and hung from the most inaccessible corners and rungs on the jungle gym with the strength that we lose as we grow into adults; the strength of children in a world where everything is big and you don’t notice yourself sweat or tire. Part of me wanted to join them, but I stayed where I was because I wanted to be noticed. The smell and taste of grime and dust from the gravel, and the kids’ hands, and my hands, and the metal was in my nose and mouth. It made my tongue and the inside of my cheeks sticky with thirst. Then the sweet smell of fall and of rotting leaves would blow on my face on a fresh and welcome breeze. My childhood friend, Shianne, was never good at reading or writing. She was never good at school in general. Shianne had started following me around one year. I helped her with much of the work we did in class and we giggled about boys together. That’s how we became friends. I wonder if- had I understood then what it meant to be like Christ and to love others like Christ did- if her life would be a whole lot different now. When the school bell rang at the end of recess, we fell in line by class. I looked over at Shianne who was now standing further up in line. She wasn’t looking back or acknowledging me. She was talking