Accidental Niceness

The nicest thing I ever did in high school was accidental.

I had a pretty great high school experience.  I was not one of those timid, uncomfortable girls in high school.  Instead, I was the quintessential be all, do all, not-a-cheerleader-as-that-was-beneath-me, kind of girl. I was quick with a comeback--pithy, witty, saucy, and that made me look like the smartest girl in the class.  At least I thought so.  

I thought I was pretty cute, but I wore thick, coke bottle glasses and it turns out that an accurate vision of my own appearance wasn't the only part of my teen view that was wildly distorted.

What I was really best at was being a fraud. You know who I mean, that girl who managed to get through school with all the same insecurities as everyone else, but whose greatest talent was acting confident. Yup, that was me.

But I could pirouette. My momma was one of the only dance teachers in my little town. She would clear out the kitchen in the mornings all summer long and teach us ballet. First position, second position, third position, plie. She taught me as long as she could stand me and I took it from there. I practiced all the time and I could perform a tight pirouette down in the aisles of our crowded little grocery store.

My nemesis through high school, (everybody has one, otherwise it wouldn’t be a good story)--my arch-rival was Sandra J.  She and I had an unspoken competition going—one I didn’t learn all the details of until much later. (The coke bottles distorted most things that were right in front of my face.)

What I perceived from my altered perspective was that she was spoiled rotten. She had her own car with personalized license plates. I had my parent’s 20 yr old clunker, when they didn’t have it, which was always. Her family was rich—appeared to be anyway--again from my teen-altered perspective.

From my cock-eyed view, it seemed that anything I wanted she got, so consequently anything she got, I wanted. President of Speech and Forensics, she got it. President of Drama Club, me.  Choir, her. Valedictorian – I got it, but no, when the numbers were re-tallied, she won by 1/100^th of a point. But I was the best dancer. I could pirouette!

It was Spring Prom time and it was my Junior prom. In those days, the Senior Ball was kinda low key because the Seniors were all focused on graduating. So the Junior Prom was the big thing. Juniors got to date (usually for the first time) since everybody was turning 16 about then. We got days off to decorate the gymnasium, and spent the big bucks on the plastic to encase it.  We strung colored lights, and painted murals--the whole hullabaloo. The Juniors got dates, got group pictures, and most important, the Juniors got to promenade. That means we paraded down the middle of the gym to be introduced, in our first formals/tuxedos and then the whole Junior class danced during intermission.

This dance, was choreographed every year by Sandra's aunt, a school teacher and the only other dance teacher in town. The first day of promenade practice, the girls all lined up and set out to pirouette. The teacher had to know which ones of us could pirouette the furthest because in her plan, at least two of us had to do it without barfing or slamming into anyone else. The best ones would dance to the center with their assigned partners.

Partners… that was a problem. Picking partners is like picking teams in P.E. You just know it’s going to get really ugly for some people, so they used the luck-of-the-draw-from-a-hat trick. My dream dance partner was Dean—as in James Dean! He was handsome in that famous, unassuming, yet brooding way. I would have died to dance with Dean. Thank goodness I was sick the day everyone hat-picked partners. When I got back the next day and walked into the after school promenade rehearsal, I found out that Sandra had lucked out with Dean and I was dancing with the reject guy—Judd.

Now, being a high school reject is a regional concept. In the state of Oklahoma, Judd would have been no reject—the boy was a giant! He would have been the star fullback and loved by everyone, coach and cheerleaders alike, but in my home state, he was just big, and… no dancer.

How my Momma got through my stuck-up, thick skull that I should pretend to be a nice person, I don’t know. I was not naturally a nice person; I have this ongoing fear that I’ll go to a high school reunion and someone will walk up to me and smack me right across the face and I will have to say, “I deserved that,” because I did. But this time, I shut my mouth and just danced. Sandra and I danced the best pirouettes, so we took the middle positions.

The prom that year could have been titled the Year of the Loser Prom. It was this same dance when I first said yes to a pity date. I had avoided saying yes to a certain boy in town, but he was determined. He suffered the ignominy of being told over and over that I could not go out, that I had to spend that evening washing my hair.  Yes, that excuse really works!  Or that I was grounded.  And I should have been—for lying.  I just couldn’t go out as I had to babysit.  That was true, but my baby sister had doubled with me before—often, on many of my dates.

But this other boy caught me at my lowest, two weeks before prom with no date! In my little town, that was not done. In fact, at the prom two years before, the boys had arranged for all the girls to have dates. They even pooled money and paid out cold hard cash for dates—just to make sure no one was humiliated--completely missing the irony. I tell you, dates were important.

So this boy caught me at a low point and I said I would go, but I told my Mom, "No pictures, take no photos. I will never date this person ever again!" and off I went to prom.

I pirouetted beautifully and I’m pretty sure I wowed the audience. I really don’t know how it looked, because at that time I spurned wearing my coke bottles glasses to important functions like that so I really couldn’t see how it went, because of course I couldn’t see anything. But I was certain, I was beautiful.

Skip ahead three years, I was now married to my “never-date-again prom date.” And I was working full time, team-cleaning condominiums for the ski season in the tourist town next door.

I loved my cleaning team. Those women ranged in age from 15 to 50 and they taught me so much. They taught me to work, and what "clean" really looked like.  They humbled me and my uppity attitude and they helped me discover that age was only a number—that hilarity is ageless and that girls will be girls no matter how old.

I benefited so much from their training and on my last day, I mentioned how much the friendships meant to me and my cleaning partner that day responded, “You’ve always meant a lot to me too… ever since you danced with my son.”

I didn’t want to say, “I had to,” so I wisely shut up. That was one of best things these women tried to teach me—to Shut Up!

She went on as if reading my mind, “I know you didn’t have to. He told me that that day at the gym when everyone was picking partners—another girl pulled his name out of the hat, and she threw such a fit, that they let her put his name back and she took your intended partner, Dean.”

“You danced with my son. And you will never know until you have children of your own what that means to a mom.”

And she’s right. I never really understood until I had boys of my own.

So really, at that loser prom, two of the nicest things I ever did in high school happened accidentally.

And that boy just might be the only guy at the reunion that I don’t have to duck.

That's My Reality and Sometimes It Bites.  But When It Does, I Write.

  Mar, 24, 2014

Valentine Sonata

Valentine Sonata '95

I spent the day in paper chaos

Searching for the perfect card

Striving for that phrase immortal

to impress you like The Bard.

My mind was tumbling with verses

Roses Are Red, or I Love You Because,

But nothing seemed to fit you perfect;

So unique—you grant me pause.

I knew that I would never find

A card to express what’s on my mind.

It seemed so hopeless. I felt despair.

At once I thought, “Buy underwear!”

I rebuked myself, “Concede defeat?”

Not me! You know, I’ve such conceit!

A thought then struck. “A poem attempt.

I’ll write and express the evident!”

I struggled and suffered the lines to rhyme,

but was suddenly, rudely reminded, “The time!”

The children were starved. Dr. Seuss had ended.

The dinner uncooked, the laundry resplendent.

The moment was lost; could not be recaptured.

My desolation complete; you would not be enraptured.

When suddenly, wonderfully, it came so inspired,

Personally, to angels, my life must be wired.

A revelation! An answer! A thought so sincere

I’ll give you the card you gave me from last year!

That's my Reality and Sometimes It Bites     2/2016

The Pluck for a Pardon

The Pluck for a Pardon

Thanksgiving is a three-ring circus in our family.  The fun begins when the troop arrives--eight siblings with children and grandchildren bursting from a myriad of vehicles, tumbling out the side doors and cascading out the back hatches.  The great-grandparents serve as ringmasters who oversee the big top; we unfold tables and set-up chairs for a hundred in our community hall. Everyone is welcome and this year we invited an expansion pack of in-laws that added even more clowns to the crush.

With a group that big, there can be no sit-down dinner with elegant china, lacy tablecloths and a succulent, bronzed fowl.  It’s a challenge to grab a paper plate and a plastic fork as the group swings past the main table scooping from industrial-sized vats of mashed potatoes, gravy and corn.  Then they flip back to the platters of turkey and stuffing.  Back and forth from a side-table of salads to another filled with drinks.  The meal culminates with a heart-stopping landing in front of the dessert table laden with a nearly two-pies-per-person ratio. 

Our family dinner traditions include a freak show of vegetarians and gluten-free-ers.  The great-grand parents were charter members of those food groups long before food became fad.  Those epicureans have been joined the past couple years by new foodies that eat paleo, keto and whole.  These odd-balls wander past dishes marked clearly with labels like vegetarian, g/f, c/f, and sugar-free.  Our family’s food habits may seem finicky at first, but if you take the time to get the whole backstory of their medical odyssey, then empathy spills forth and the bullying and snark fade away.  The odd-balls are embraced because the goal is to have no medical reactions served up with dessert. Insight creates understanding and that is a laudable life goal.   

After dinner half of our group disperse to their second-meal destinations and a collective sigh releases from the gaffers and grips who have juggled the seamless presentation of the food-free-for-all.   The rest of the clan sit down to some serious board gaming and govern-mental problem-solving. 

Tempers flare in the after-meal conversations, but conflict is one of the standard side shows of most close relationships.  Humans have an inborn yearning to connect and through each one of us runs a streak of unique that is seeking its place in the crush.  Rejection by those who matter the most is humanity’s greatest fear.  Throughout my own personal journey, I have come to learn firsthand how the prickly Me, Me, Me Monster--that bullying narcissist—can learn to pull in its quills and lower its defenses when offered acceptance and love unfeigned.     

Soon, we welcomed the occupants of the second chorus of clown cars and their contribution to the table of diverse desserts.  Amidst the carnival chaos, two of the grand-nieces flee the brouhaha to take a refreshing stroll outdoors.  They wander a block or two away to visit a friend who is also visiting relatives in our little town from their own little town.

When the girls return they corner me, and they made an intriguing comment, “Auntie, we just visited a friend whose Dad said he knew you years ago, from high-school.”

That innocuous phrase is one I dread.  “I knew you from high school,” is anathema for me because I know that if I hear it in person, I should probably duck.  More than likely, those words will be followed by a slap on the cheek, or a sock on the chin.  And I when I come-to from the knock-out, I will have to shrug and admit, “I deserved that.”  Angst and regret fill the painful anecdotes from my high school memories.  

“He said that we shouldn’t mention to you that he said hi, because you guys didn’t get along all that well.”  Their comment didn’t completely drain the pool of candidates, but it helped.   A hammer slammed down and rang a bell in my memory, and I knew of whom they had spoken.  

I may not have been the nice one at school, but back then, I felt I was equally matched in offensive talent by only one guy.   While I was adept at tossing a verbal dagger, he had the deadliest knife-toss in the school and he could set his target spinning in circles with a cascade of verbal jabs. 

He was the subject of my decade-long retribution nightmares until I finally woke up and learned to embrace the bully creed, “The best bullies are those built by bullies.”  I evolved and in our last years of high school, when the two of us would meet at each end of the hallway, we'd duel and sling an arsenal of steel-tipped barbs with deadly accuracy and heaven help the innocent victims in our way. 

So now, thirty-five years later and eons wiser, I thought I would take the opportunity to walk over and face him.  I would look in his eyes with forgiveness and say, “Hey, I imagine that being the youngest of seven brothers couldn’t have been easy.  I’m sorry for sending you that Valentine cookie in our Senior year that said, ‘Drop Dead,’ and I’d like to ask for your forgiveness.” 

Yeah, I wish I’d done it.  But in life’s freak show, there lingers in me that porcupine girl who has become comfortable with the pain from her prickles. 

Maybe I’ll get up the pluck next year, when the traveling circus returns.

This is My Reality, and Sometimes it Bites.  And When It Does, I Write.  

Final Eng 101 - Yeah, I'm finally starting College. Jan 3, 2018