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10:10 p.m. - 06/04/03
we got something to be.....<
I need some distraction/ oh, beautiful release/ Memories seep from my veins...^ So I'll use them then, the memories ... because I do need a means of distraction, as much as I ever have.

In first grade, I knew a girl with a first name like a flower and a surname like a tree. I liked her well enough; she was small and quiet, kind of like me, and I invited her to my seventh birthday party, the only party I ever hosted. In second grade, she moved away which back then meant to the edge of the earth, to New Mexico, which meant the country not the state, where we heard you couldn't even drink the water. I wondered how she would stay healthy and if she'd have to pack water with her and why on earth her parents were making such an awful move. I'd probably have almost forgotten her, if it weren't for that one photograph, with all of us around the kitchen table, decorated thoroughly with butterfly accoutrements, grinning, or smiling, or twisting our faces into reasons for others to grin and smile. I do remember her, though, and it's because of her that I can do Stephanie some justice because Stephanie came in third grade, new from the outside, far away, into the world the girl I knew had so newly left, from the world beyond our understanding.

(In first grade, I thought the Gulf War was being fought down by the Gulf of Mexico. That was as far as my mind's globe stretched and the only gulf it covered.)

Stephanie came in with long brown hair, almost like mine, but straight where mine was waves and frizz and curls. She was shorter than me, which was rare, and talkative, good friends with nearly everyone I was friends with right away. She had a last name like a tropical bird, though we demented it into a Starbucks drink (long before Starbucks meant anything), and neither that nor her first name ever fit into the little boxes and bubbles of standardized testing. I admired that about her; I admired that she could look so easily explained (she was shorter than me!) and still not fit into the boxes. I was sad, though, when the year neared its end and she cut her long hair short to her ears. Everyone loved it; of course, it was cute, but I felt personally affronted. "Stephanie!" I wanted to say. "Our one certain link, our bond! How could you take it away?" but even by third grade, shyness had taken over the rights of transrational emotion.

In fourth grade, we started band together, and we both played the clarinet. That would become my main way of knowing her as the years went on, through the time when she left for the schools on the outskirts of our districts, to her return in middle school. She had one of the brand-new clarinets all the kids bought when they started, shiny and perfect, but plastic which doesn't have as good a sound. That was my line, always, every year when my dull and long-lived clarinet (with all zir stories) started to look dingy in the sparkle. Sure, but listen to my tone. Stephanie could play, and so could I. She talked a little too much for the directors to like, so sometimes she shifted further back into the section, but anyone who listened knew she belonged right next to me, at a time when I belonged in the first chair (and had it.) Before the old clarinet that hadn't been cleaned professionally in years could no longer find voice on my measly, panic-depleted breath. Before the idea of auditioning alone would make me hyperventilate, so that plastic and wood didn't matter, my "tone" did not exist. It was airy and fuzzed out like I played with a lazy mouth. I fell to the back of the section sophomore year (after being first chair of a lesser band as a freshman, Stephanie at my side, joking me through all the way, making me feel like I mattered; from the day she walked in she had status- where from we weren't entirely sure, but she didn't have to talk to me; that much I knew) next to Stephanie again. And she didn't always tongue her notes as written, and she didn't always play the rhythms as they fit into the lines, but I admired the flow of her fingers. The way her blind shot in the dark danced, just like her easy conversation, the social skills that never worked for me. She could talk seriously, humorously. Once she asked me if I thought she should take AP history, and I was honored. I thought everyone knew I'd fallen from my pedestal of achievement - musical, academic, and everything surrounding - but she asked me and I told her yes. She was in my honors English and math classes, too, one of those rare birds who fits in, those popular kids who never conform to the catalogue.

I'm trying to remember her clothing now, to say how it was different than that of the highest-status kids I knew, but I can't find it in my brain. When I look for Stephanie, all I find is her face: her eyes straight on me, her expression, focused, listening. And that's the best dress of all: here was a girl that had no reason to wind in conversation from someone as chatter-deficient as I was, but had a way of painlessly letting me meet her eyes. Someday, I'll be remembered that way also. All accoutrements aside.

I wonder how she remembers me.

*

I started thinking about Stephanie because she's one of those people I've been mentioning occasionally in here, the ones that I could have known so much better than I ever did. The ones I regret not having the skill to speak with more openly, not fully entering the adventure of, not feeling safe enough to go where my presence might even possibly be construed as an invasion. It's the sort of thing I was writing when I left Neverland, the bits and pieces of people there, which were posted in a journal once, long before the three-month rule existed. There are others to write about, too, and possibly to write to, also. Sitting on the counter in the next room are letters to my first to fourth and fifth to seventh grade best friends. I wrote their addresses out with a smile, and thought how maybe I need to round it out with a letter to the cherished companion of my kindergarten days, who I always hit it off with again, academic schedules permitting. I already covered the most prominent middle and high school ground. I do feel a need to say something to people like Mandy and Chas and Laura, though. Those teachers who kept teaching, and more importantly kept hanging onto me, so that I'm even here today at all, let alone entirely graduated. Yessirreebob, I have indeed managed to gather every single credit, finish every single final, turn in every single point, and am now free to walk or not to walk. (I decided to walk from the building rather than inside it), but by inside I mean across a stage. I did walk inside the building itself again today, for the third time in my young life, overwhelmed again by the reality ("it's such a *school*") and grateful for the end-of-year chaos and messes. (Rows of lockers open, contents spilling into hallways, testing the strength of plastic bags.) The end of the year is a beautiful thing, especially when it's the end of fourteen of them. (Yes, fourteen: pre-school, kindergarten, and right on up the abacus.) I told Mom on the way out, "You know what's great about not being at N*land right now? I mean, besides everything...? I don't have to deal with all the sentimental, nostalgic people who think the world is ending. I can just jump and scream and sing." And sing we did, borrowing bits from spirituals, from folk singers, from the loud alt rock boys on the radio. Anything with a relevant line or a dance-worthy beat. When I got home, I played "Nothing On Me", napped and woke up with, "I Am Done" in my head. It was nice, as earlier I'd been trying to think of happy graduation-associable songs and struggled. I'm so inundated with "Friends" and "Corner of the Sky" (senior song at N*land, banned from my graduation party along with "Pomp and Circumstance) and whatever that pop one was a few years back, that I couldn't think of anything celebratory. It has to exist, though. I am not the first person in the world to graduate with a clearly enunciated, "Hallefuckinglujah."

Ok, maybe I forgot to say that in the moment, but right now it's coming out loud and clear. My mixture of the sacred and the profane has tapered off a little lately, since a really uncool nightmare I had where a good friend of mine (from N*land, uber-Christian) bombed the school after I pushed him a bit on religion. Basically, he was trying to kill off all the non-Christian badness at the school, be it human or energy or a stray word floating down a hallway. Nightmares like that need to just die. I don't believe in hell, which was part of what bothered him if I remember, but nightmares like that can go there anyway.

So, the big meeting/ introduction/ stick-a-face-to-the-name gala? It didn't really happen. Hence my lack of readiness to write about it. I did meet my very cool physics teacher, who was a bit more inhibited in person (he did look fairly similar to how I pictured him, though - a little less lanky and a little less sure, but then we were having a conversation in front of Mistrandy and my mom, so I'll cut him slack) but I refuse to remember as any less cool than I knew him to be through the class. I also met my history teacher, a (wrestling?) coach who looks absolutely nothing like I pictured him. He's fairly short, with almost no hair on his head, (still very young; *maybe* 30), but he has muscle that's basically insane. He was just running up from a workout when we met him, and my godd, I think the dude could have stood on one hand and lifted the three of us up with the other. It was impressive to me, to see someone look that fit and that healthy simultaneously. Plus, he was very cool, telling me all those things A-grubbing teacher's pets love to hear, like how I'm a rare, rare student to find, how he says "Wow" whenever he sees my work, how I write really well, and did I do as well in the rest of my classes? yeah, he thought I would. I can write and that's 90 percent of the game.

The game. Hee hee. You can't stop those coaches; it's in the gatorade.

I also met my gothic novels' teacher's classroom, which was in itself an experience. The room smells like incense, has sixties posters and the ones of wild wolves et cetera, all over the walls. There's a sign above the door with a picture of Mr. Rogers and a quote (gotta admit, it won cheesy points, but points nonetheless) I can't remember, and another that says "Most Welcoming Classroom." Yes, I may have missed the woman herself (who refers to me as her "dear scholar"), but I do believe I encountered the vibe at almost full-intensity. What a lovely fruitbasket that woman must be...

The big disappointment was that I didn't meet Mr. H, my very cool Diversity teacher who it always seemed I would have hit it off with had we actually communicated enough to do so...I'm thinking I call and leave a message either for him, with my e-mail, or for Mistrandy, asking her to supply him with it. After all, I was determined to have no regrets based on inaction. I need to call Mistrandy anyway to let her know I can't come back tomorrow (our alternate plan when we realized how many of my teachers had disappeared for lunch.) I have about twelve of her phone numbers, though, so that should be do-able. A woman on the go, that one. But she gave me her contact info, not even knowing I'd given her mine (in a card, along with pretty yellow roses, in pretty white baby's breath, in pretty blue tissue paper, with pretty silver garland-type-stuff around in) ... It was a hard goodbye, even though we know it's just a see-you. I'll really miss seeing her every few days and not just because I see so few people. What a wonderful find...

I still didn't cry, though. I was remembering the other end of this whole journey (which I suppose should be pre-school, but I don't remember much before the age of 5) - especially the way that I bawled after first grade ended; I was so distraught over the idea of not seeing my two teachers, Mrs. Z and Ms. M, again. I cried and cried, and my siblings thought I was deranged ("it's out! and...you're sad?!") but looking back today, I didn't see myself as the slightest bit naive. I really did love them, and it really did hurt me to have a summer break. Now? I really am ready to have finished high school. I really am ready to never again do those things people keep assuring me I'll have to do - like jump through hoops, prove myself incessantly, or continue to "learn" without feeling intrigued. I understand that I might stumble across one of those situations every now and again throughout life, but what people don't seem to understand is I really am refusing to choose to be in that situation ever. I will burrow my own tunnels, build bridges, and swing from vines before I'll quantify, demean, and sell myself again.

It is possible to live life without doing that. The same people who tell me it isn't are the ones forgetting that I will *not* go to a normal university, that I will *not* take the average corporate job, and I will *not*, in general, let myself be forced into a path that does me harm. I didn't have a choice when I was a child (and back then, there were many good years.) I didn't have a choice when I was in middle school and needed desperately to leave. I am not ever returning to a place where my options are hell or self-destruction. The only other option isn't one.

The best part of the day: I walked into my principal's office- the one I've only met once before, who has a name like a movie star and met me when I was sobbing over an eight class schedule. He recognized me, at least with the aid of my mom's presence, and I handed him one of the thank you cards I bought from the girl who was also homebound and is also thrilled to be graduating. He was all excited to get it, but more excited to see me, actually in the building. It was the best exchange. I kept eye contact with him, no problem; I talked. I told him my plans. I thanked him for everything he's done (including blow N*land out of the fucking water) and he just stood there saying, "You did it. You did it. I look at your schedule, and the fact that you did it homebound...You are one bright student." And Mistrandy was all agreeing with him, and it was lovely, but the best part was that he was most impressed with the thing he wasn't saying, the one I hadn't even realized until I was back in that same office with him once again: I was socially at ease. I was strong. I had made it through high school. I was a hell of a lot more myself and more ready for the world than I was eight months ago, and that reality, felt so fully was indescribable. It was like the second zip-line just before I left Rogers... The full circle, take a step back, and a breath forward, oh-my-wow.

And then repeated with the guidance counselor who so graciously aided me this past year-and-a-half. She said something like, "So you're off to glorious things?" and I said, "yes" and she said, "Good" which was my favorite. I'd been stuttering over my "plans" all afternoon (still unnerved by the fact that I'm not going to college right away this fall, though I love the fact that no one can take my joy away with the typical, "ha, ha, you'll be in school in three months" routine), and to have her ask about them so generally, but with such high faith was really lovely. I know they doubted the day would come when I would walk through the doors to begin with, let alone walk through them, finish a final in a classroom, meet up with several different people, and generally "chat" away the afternoon. I didn't know all their impressed-ness would rub off and have me leaving there, head high as a superheroine's. Take that, Neverland.

*

And with all that pretty distraction in my head, I don't really want to go into all of why I needed it. If you've been to caged, you know it. I love Sara, and eating disorders are dangerous, dangerous diseases. But if I'm going to fall asleep at all tonight, it's best to think of how much I love her and not how helpless I am...

But you know me and my heart's room for any spirituality - from science to prayer to magic to wishing. If you do anything resembling hope, please do it for my Sara and for me. We need to win this one.

(truly, deeply thank you)
chord

^Sarah McLachlan

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