Elementary School Walls

I once went back to my old elementary school. I believe I was a few years since my “graduation,” but the time frame of the memory is hazy. This I remember with absolute clarity; I felt big.

Not in a figurative sense, I quite literally felt that my body had grown. Actually, I lied.  My initial thought was the oh so human deduction that the school shrank. How many times since have I formed assumptions based on that exact line of logic. There was no way I am the modified element, I never change as an individual.  

I remember stretching my arms out wide. One hand touched the very same painted cinder blocks that likely supplied all of my childhood illnesses. The other was markedly closer to the other side than it was when those walls grew familiar. Surely, the halls condescended. There was no way I was ever that small.

Strikingly, my feet almost entirely filled the colored square floor tiles. That was not possible. How many times had I cautiously placed my feet within the grout lines to avoid a mid line step? My feet had never been in such peril as they were a few sizes bigger, and well within danger.

I remember commenting to my mother, “I feel like the school shrank.”

I half expected, and in many way hoped, that she would confirm my underlying theory that indeed, it was a strange anatomic phenomenon, but it was a thing. Elementary schools shrink after a few years, nobody knows how it happens.

Instead, she laughed and said, “Yeah, weird right?”

My spirits sank a bit at her response; just a bit. I was forced to accept the fact that my elementary world view was distorted because it was formed by a small body and a growing mind. It was not as I thought it was, it was much smaller.

That is when I realized that small things quite literally seem big to children; like school, blockbuster, fairs, grocery stores, a car trip to Washington DC. It was difficult to accept that children was a noun that included me.

As I’ve grown older, I like to think that I have moved past mourning the loss of pride that inevitably follows a realization of naivety. In a few years, I will likely realize that statement is a paradox in and of itself.

At this stage in my life, the world seems boundless. On good days, my potential feels as mammoth as the amount of art I never took the time to appreciate when I lived in Italy. I see children passionately caring for things I deem small and unimportant. I see young adults caring for things that I presume out of their reach and unattainable. I see old people seemingly revert back to their childhood status of living largely in small spaces. What I mean by this, is caring passionately for things I judge to be small and unimportant; like town hall meetings, and ushering church services.

I wonder if I am on the inexorable track headed for ambition, disillusionment, and a reversion to simplicity. I wonder if the timeline for human wonder and growth, so repeated in literature, is worth relinquishment. All of the similarities of the human condition that draw me in admiration to art and history sometimes feel like a trap. I am afraid that one day I may wake up and realize that I am not special at all, but just another member of the human pattern.

I think what I mean by this is I am afraid that in time I will find the world small again. I know that most modest matters aren’t actually small at all; but right now I can not grasp that fact with my heart. Admittedly, at this stage in my life, I want to fight and emancipate myself from small walls. More likely than not, I will soon realize that I was not only formerly a child, but am still a small body with a growing mind forming distorted realities.

Poem during a hurricane. Irma, to be exact.

You made small talk for the first time since May. 

I felt sentiments of the aboriginal pull

You’d been to the institution I’d loved 

We planned to go together, you remember? 

That plan was long before I could conceive 

I’d hold more contempt for you 

Than I’ve felt for a breathing soul.

You broke me, for that I hate you. Remember? 

The rancor was new, now grown mundane 

It is easy to hate you I do not see

Yet your face was pained this night 

Your life, an impetuous romantic, the same. 

I remember. 

You, ever bound to your elations 

Sent me from my antagonistic perch

I know not the pain of such stagnation 
As you; bound to souls to steadily besmirch

Words I've been liking lately

One of my students picked this out for a Harlem Renaissance project, and it gave me chills as she read it to the class.


A Song to a Negro Wash-Woman
Oh, wash-woman
Arms elbow-deep in white suds,
Soul washed clean,
Clothes washed clean,—
I have many songs to sing you
Could I but find the words.


Was it four o’clock or six o’clock on a winter afternoon,
I saw you wringing out the last shirt in Miss White
Lady’s kitchen? Was it four o’clock or six o’clock?
I don’t remember.


But I know, at seven one spring morning you were on
Vermont Street with a bundle in your arms going to
wash clothes.
And I know I’ve seen you in a New York subway train in
the late afternoon coming home from washing clothes.


Yes, I know you, wash-woman.
I know how you send your children to school, and high
school, and even college.
I know how you work and help your man when times are hard.
I know how you build your house up from the wash-tub
and call it home.
And how you raise your churches from white suds for the
service of the Holy God.


And I’ve seen you singing, wash-woman. Out in the backyard garden under the apple trees, singing, hanging white clothes on long lines in the sun-shine.
And I’ve seen you in church a Sunday morning singing,
praising the Almighty, because some day you’re going to
sit on the right hand of God and forget
you ever were a wash-woman. And the aching back
and the bundle of clothes will be unremembered
then.
Yes, I’ve seen you singing.


And for you ,
O singing wash-woman
For you, singing little brown woman,
Singing strong black woman,
Singing tall yellow woman,
Arms deep in white suds,
Soul clean,
Clothes clean,—
For you I have many songs to make
Could I but find the words.
         
  -Langston Hughes






I love the way he puts words to gentle dignity. I love the call to simplicity.
I used to describe myself as simple, at least I would after Italy. When someone first called me simple in Italy, I was shocked; in English, simple usually means simple minded.
That isn't what they meant at all. In Italian, simple is a way to describe someone who is more or less down to earth and content in their own skin. It is a word to say someone is easily pleased, in a good way.


I take much pride in being down to earth, at least I did. I've realized that I am far less simple these days. It is like pulling teeth to forgo a night of socialization to stay in and do work or just be silent. I  crave any and all socialization, even if I know that it will leave me feeling unfulfilled.
I've shifted. Its most likely that this happened because after a year of so little interaction, I was desperate for freedom and attention. Still am, I suppose.


This poem made me think of where I was, and it makes me want to get back to that contentment and appreciation for quiet dignity; a contentment I used to feel with my heart and not just my mind, like I do these days.


I want to be like Hughes; wordless and in awe of someone who is tirelessly living their best self in less that ideal circumstances. I guess this would require me thinking outside of myself sometimes. I'll get there, it'll just take time.


Italy was a beautiful waste of time: Eri un bellissimo spreco di tempo.