2002-11-04 @ 6:25 p.m. | My last writing assignment

Song in my head:

Mood:

Current book:


For most of my life, it seemed like just exiting the front door was a risk; leaving the comfortable cocoon of predictability that was home for an unknown outside, well, it seemed tinged with an undercurrent of uncertainty, a hint of danger.

My brother and I would catch the bus at the bottom of our steep driveway, that incline that was much hated on still-dark snowy winter mornings. Instead of getting to spend snow days sleeping late, the whole family would exit the warmth of home, our breath steaming in the amber light of the mercury streetlamp, to try to dig through to the cracked and bumpy asphalt that was buried under the white blanket of snow that was anything but inviting.

Marty and I would wait for the bus on days where we didn�t have to shovel out the driveway, each school day for seven years, secretly hoping that the bus would pass us by and allow us back into the small, warm house presiding over the incline. Other kids in the neighborhood waited at nearby bus stops, with congregations of kids playing games, but our mother insisted upon our own individual bus stop from fear of the combination of fast cars and sidewalk-less streets that waited right outside of our front door.

So there was no dodge ball or tag for just the two so us, and Marty and I approximated our games: pick a color, count how many cars of that color drive by before the bus comes, and his blue beat my silver every time. See if you can kick a rock across the yellow line, but just over � closest to the yellow line wins. In the fall we kicked acorns instead of rocks and I learned to adjust the force in my kick to get the acorn across the dividing line just right.

In the frigid winter mornings where there was no snow, just cold, Marty would spin outlandish tales of me being soaked with ice-cold water from a fire hose and then rolled in a snow bank, and the chill his words produced pierced the layers of sweater and scarf and hat and coat and gloves my mother made sure we wore every winter morning that she didn�t have to work. Marty, of course, peeled off as many layers as he could stand the minute we walked out the door, while mine never seemed thick enough to keep me warm.

On those school days when my mother didn�t work � every school day she didn�t work � Mom would sit on our beat-up coffee table in front of the living room picture window and watch us, even in the springtime when the yew bushes grew wild and crowded her view. She claimed that seeing us for those fifteen minutes before the bus came, watching us cross the street (always aware of the possibility of speedy cars flying around the bend and not seeing us), finally seeing us on the bus and pulling away to school � this allowed her to relax and go on with her day knowing that we were safe.

I never quite found a way to tell her that the bus wasn�t really safe, even though I made it to school and back home with no visible scars. As far as middle school kids were concerned, having our own personal bus stop, of course, made us stand out from the pack instantly. As if my body didn�t do that already; at least Marty slipped away from that sort of scrutiny. Me at 13 - tall, fat, clumsy, awkward in my own skin � and the books I tried to retreat into never gave me the invisibility I craved. Yes, today, I walk tall, show my height, show my thick thighs and full stomach, everything big and fat, my laugh, my love, my pride. Yes, today I feel eyes on my body with appreciation, and I have no shame to take up space, to have appetites, to scream to the world with every pound of me � fuck you, I won�t be who you tell me to be. Yet sometimes I flash back fifteen years ago to those mornings on the bus, a fifteen minute ride I dreaded every day as I rose (waking with the thought what will it be today a nonstop litany in my mind). Leaving the house fearful of the disapproval, the names, the spitting, gum in my hair; ashamed, stuffing myself down, cowering, supplicating, yes I�m dieting of course I�m dieting, doing penance by eating only celery sticks and self-hatred, wanting to shrink and shrivel to acceptability, invisibility, safety. I remember these mornings and know the risk of merely leaving through the front door.


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