I missed previous get together because I was either popping out babies, moving around the country or involved in some intense family/work situation.
I went to an all girl Catholic High School in the suburbs of Chicago. It was a radical choice....since I lived in the City and needed to hop on a commuter train every day..... plus it was run by "radical nuns"--spiritual women who didn't wear habits, lived in apartments and expected their young charges to head off to college. In contrast, the all girl Catholic high school closest to my neighborhood was considered a four year pause before marriage and babies.
Saturday was the main event day for the reunion. I spent the morning pointing at women (with a tinge of embarrassment) and saying, "Oh my god I recognize your face but can't think of you're name." I also spent a fair amount of time nudging my friend Sue or someone else I had comfortably identified and whispering...."Who is SHE?"....when core face recognition failed.
Of course after you identify everyone.....it's time to play ....let's reminisce. I would have earned a D.....if it was a graded exam. In fact, I was so bad at remembering my high school days....I considered asking people ( who seemed to remember a lot about me) to write their recollections about my high school life and email it to me.
"You were always writing. Don't you remember you were the copy editor for yearbook and the feature editor for the newspaper?"
I was ?
"We all thought you were going to run off to Italy after graduation. I remember you sitting down on the floor in one of the classrooms and sobbing over that Italian guy you met on the school trip."
Really?
"If anyone was going to travel the world, I'd figure it would be you.....you always seemed like the type."
I did?
I felt like an amnesia victim being counseled by people in her past. Was it normal to forget so much? Some women remembered everything--the elastic on the pant legs of their gym suits, the lunch menu in the cafeteria, where their locker was located....even the combination to their locks!
But I had selective memory....recalling only bits and pieces.....like my high school gym teacher, Mrs. Reynolds, who looked, talked and acted like a female marine. She was a no no sense woman with a rectangular body (curves were not allowed). She wore stark white anklets and white Ked tennis shoes and modest Bermuda shorts. A big silver whistle hung round her neck and she stood akimbo....hands on her hips.... for most of the day....barking orders at her "soft" girlie girls.
She taught me how to shoot free throws....how to move my body--bending those knees, pushing the basketball up and out with my hand and fingertips... focusing on the rim....so the ball dropped effortlessly into the net. Every time I stood in the driveway with my sons and sunk a shot ...I thought of Mrs. Reynolds...and her quick nod of approval when someone actually did something right.
The memory of the dark haired voluptuous speech teacher who threw chalk at me from the back of the room...also returned.
It's the.....t ...h...t....h....the...not dah!
She shouted at me after the chalk pinged the blackboard.
I stood at the podium, red-faced with a nuclear bomb of shame mushrooming inside me .....facing suburban girls with perfect articulation. I never knew until I was in her class that I had a Chicago accent....or even that such an accent existed. Every time I have a public speaking engagement, I highlight the th words in my notes and the words ending in s.......so the chalk doesn't fly again.
~~~~~~
Saturday evening was the grand dinner at a wonderful Italian restaurant. I found my senior yearbook on a table. I stood in a corner, pink Cosmo in hand, reading prose I had written when I was 17 years old. I was genuinely surprised by it....it was thoughtful....it had "slant"...a creative bent to it....but mostly it had feeling.
Since I've returned to writing, emotions are the hardest thing for me to capture. I can be logical, I can be descriptive.....I can be funny.....but I dodge my feelings. I have become a master of avoidance. But this young me wore her heart on her sleeve....blatantly trying to connect to her readers. I felt sad. The passage of time on the faces of my classmates and on their bodies didn't effect me as much as seeing my own words...so unprotected and brave.
By the time dinner arrived, I felt I needed Ginko supplements and a referral to a psychologist.
But perhaps in the long run this is the beauty of a reunion.....to see how much we remain the same.....and to see how much we have changed. If most of my classmates thought I would end up a writer.....that's hopeful....I've returned to the original path....if I could write on a slant and with feelings then.....perhaps with work....that too can return.
My high school yearbook pic and a snippet of copy.We live like snails too often,
letting the world see
only our hard shells.
How sensitive, soft and vibrant we are
once we allow the shell
to be lifted.
~~~
