A Fender-Bender on Memory Lane

I recognize her immediately in the crowd, though Chez Michel is evidently just as popular a restaurant as the last time I was in Washington, and the throng at lunchtime practically spills out the door this rainy autumn day. Congressional wives and retired businesswomen lean toward each other over linen-covered tables, talking cheerfully above the din, while waiters with black bow ties scurry like penguins between the bar and the main dining area. She waits alone at a table for two. She’s as elegant now as she was then: the lean hands leafing through the menu are exquisitely manicured, and her turquoise suit hangs neatly on a still-slender frame. Only her hair is different, a becomingly-styled silver instead of the auburn I remember from so long ago.

“Honey, I’m so glad to see you!” she cries, as I hurry to the table. She doesn’t say a word about my being late, so I won’t need the pitiable excuses I rehearsed in the car on the way over from my hotel. And I definitely won’t mention that I was so nervous I ran a red light, something I haven’t done in years.

“Why, this is such fun that you could make time for me,” says Mrs. Beesley, her sweet Virginia drawl perfectly sincere. A waiter pours me a glass of Chardonnay from the bottle already open at the table, though I feel awkward drinking with her, as if maybe I ought to be sipping chocolate milk out of a carton with a plastic straw instead. When the food arrives, I feel that I’ve gone overboard by ordering the fettuccine—she contents herself with a modest, ladylike bowl of shrimp bisque. For Pete’s sake, I remind myself, just because she’s my former kindergarten teacher doesn’t mean I’m being graded on lunch.

I watch myself drop my butter knife, which clatters noisily onto the plate. Charming child? This clear-eyed belle remembers the full names of both my parents, my brother and most of my classmates. Is it possible she has forgotten our year together?

Most of my school history is a blurry film reel, whose actors and plot escape me. But kindergarten was a terror which stands out in Technicolor memory. My first day of school, my mother dressed me in a maroon wool dress much too warm for the early September morning and dropped me off at the edge of the school yard. Bewildered and alone, I didn’t locate my classroom until a full five minutes after the bell had rung.

“You’re late!” cried Mrs. Beesley, interrupting her roll call. She strode over to where I stood shyly in the doorway, her high heels clacking on linoleum, and yanked me into a seat. I was conscious only of 20 pairs of eyes trained completely on me. An awful moment, but only a harbinger of the surprises and mortifications to come. Maybe Mrs. Beesley needed a test dummy for the life lessons she yearned to teach us, or perhaps at four years old, I was simply too young to brave a classroom of five-year-olds. Every day was a torture. Each rule or instruction I was given was a trapdoor leading to error and humiliation, through which I fell again and again.

During string painting, I dropped the end of my string into the paint saucer the moment she warned us not to do it. At recess, sitting off by myself at the edge of the blacktop, I missed her hand signal to form a line to go inside, and was made to apologize to the class before we went in. At naptime, I tripped over the record player on the way to my floor mat, and we listened to “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies” with a horrible skip in the music that was entirely my fault. In my terror, I whispered songs we were supposed to learn, while the other children belted them out, and was made to sing them out loud, alone. When we made vegetable soup one autumn afternoon, I was chastised for enthusiastically peeling a carrot until it disappeared entirely.

“WE DO NOT WASTE FOOD!” Mrs. Beesley announced fiercely to the class, glaring at me. I hid my head in my hands. Three o’clock eventually came, but my mother, who was distracted by business errands, didn’t show up, and Mrs. Beesley had to call her to come get me. I couldn’t even get picked up from school right. 

As years went by, I didn’t know how to fix myself. Under too much instruction I began to feel inept and claustrophobic. I remember that I loved playing the piano in our dining room by myself on a winter afternoon, making up elaborate, wistful melodies of my own to go with the damp grey weather. Perfecting drills on a fake wooden keyboard, while a blue-haired music teacher watched my wrists with suspicion, or being made to practice scales or odd folk songs I had never heard of made me feel sick to my stomach. I tried earnestly to be a good child, but felt paralyzed by all the requirements, which I couldn’t seem to meet or didn’t understand, of my parents and the other adults.

Too much structure still makes me nervous, though I’m a grown woman now. I find it difficult to follow recipes exactly as written, dissect books in a book group, or force myself to learn dance moves in a class. I want to see what lies beyond the “No Public Access” sign on the trail in the regional park. I don’t want to work on Monday mornings and I don’t want to go to bed when everyone else does. I still long to color outside the lines.

In a poem, Erica Jong made it clear that one rule for herself as a writer was to leave the vacuuming and the dusting to her female forebears; she’d take up her pen instead and learn to make peace with all the dust bunnies. I believe I’d feel safe around her. People who break rules for the right reasons make me feel as if there’s a grown-up in charge. I feel comforted by whistle-blowers and choreographers and comedians, and caring people with messy desks.

My own rules for living sanely turn out to be pretty much the sort of techniques you would use to calm a lost child waiting in a police station for her mother to show up.

• Here, honey, we have lots of chocolate on hand. Pistachio ice cream, too.
• It’s okay to get up and walk around, or take a nap if you feel like it. There’s a t.v. in the break room if you feel like watching anything.
• Help is on the way.  
• I bet you’re really smart. You look really smart.
• What do you want to do next? I’ll wait with you until we think of something.
• You’re not really lost, you’re having an adventure. And we’re going to give you a badge.

These are the same soothing guidelines I use for making art, managing change, combating despair, allowing grieving, and healing. Mrs. Beesley managed to teach me something after all, despite her best efforts. When the old rules don’t work, you can make up brand new ones. Or better yet, trust the way you are the wonderful, exasperating exception.

Stacy Appel is a writer in California whose work has been featured in The Chicago Tribune and other publications.  She has also written for National Public Radio.  Please contact Stacy at ­­WordWork101@aol.com.­­

~Stacy Appel