Creative Retribution

Sometimes you just have duck and cover - so God can belt 'em one for you. That way you keep your hands, and conscience, clean.

For the recap of the story you can read part one and two here. I highly recommend starting at the very beginning but the quickie recap is that I had a first-grade teacher who hated “cryers” (guilty!) and who proclaimed at the top of her lungs THERE ARE NO CRYERS IN MY CLASS, or something of that ilk, all while grabbing my skull and jolting it back and forth as if I were laundry on Ma Kettle’s washboard. That, without some other bells and whistles pretty much catches you up.

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So What Did I Do About That Meanie Who Made Me Cry?

Now to continue…In addition to the separation anxiety that made me cry, I had this other thing about me when I was young: I fainted a lot. I know. It’s weird. Mom got me all EKG’d up, but nothing came of it. Something about a fever I’d had a few weeks earlier. BUT:

Again, in Reading Circle - because God likes symbolism and setting the scene to make a point - we were reading Curious George. And this particular story of the little mischievous monkey was “Curious George Gets Stitches”. I’m not kidding. It seems absurd to me now. But nevertheless somewhere in the story of a monkey going to a doctor, I started to see what can only be described as an old black and white TV screen gone “snow”. My eyes fixated upon black and white horizontal blurry buzzy lines (probably rolling into the back of my head) and then?

BAM.

I face-planted smack dab in the center of Reading Circle right over my book box. Little girl down. Contact made.

When I awoke, I gazed straight upward, who knows how much later. My first soft backlighted image was Mrs. M. looking white as a ghost repeating my name in frantic repetition - certainly frightened I’d just died in her class. Wouldn’t that have been a hoot! NOT REALLY, I’M JOOOOKKKKING. Mostly.

I could see for the first time something different in her outlook. She’d been trumped. Maybe man-handling children’s skulls because you don’t have the WORDS to use (do you need Reading Circle, Honey?) is NOT the best use of whatever drip of wisdom God gave you.

I got to go home early that day not really knowing at that moment that I’d gotten her back! (Please imagine that phrase, “gotten her back” exclaimed gleefully in 7-year-old fashion.)

And this, my Dear, is an example of how God rights wrongs.

And how creative He is at doing it.

“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” Cut that crap out, severely misguided daughter of mine, or next time it’s the millstone for you.

Mon Dieu! Of Pink Tights, Po-Po’s and Polka Dots

This teacher conveys absolutely 100% the joy I did NOT experience in ballet class.

Once when I  was about thirteen after having long been onstage in the form of acting or dancing and having spent many years in leotards and tights, I came home from school one day to learn that Mom had scheduled an audition for me with the Fort Worth School of Ballet. Growing up in a relatively small town (Fort Worth was not Dallas after all), a dance school named after its city was the ultimate feather in the cap. I had for many years been taught by the well-known “Grand Dame” of ballet who owned her own private ballet school. I never liked her. I disliked going to those classes because of the consistent feeling of worthlessness I felt by the time I left.

But even though I came home furious about “those snotty girls” looking “down” on me and the decidedly not French teacher’s incessant use of the phrase, Mon Dieu!, (she was not French), Mom made me put the tights back on. Did it matter to Mom I had to hear, “Fleur, Mon Dieu! Po-Po under!” (“under” was pronounced und-hurrrr.) What was a “Po-Po”? Guess. So affirming of my curves. But every week the tights went back on. Why? Because Mom said, “actors need grace on stage. They need to be able to move well.”

How did she know that? I think the answer hovers somewhere around her comment on the “Heifers clomping across the stage” whether they were dancing or walking, or for that matter standing, when we’d see a play or recital. (She was right.)

I didn’t truly have the body for ballet. (My “Po-Po” was never going under.) I was petite with athletic thighs. I remember one specific lesson relevéing en point in second position and my thighs were so muscular that you could see every cut of the muscle (probably due to the tap lessons) in the mirror that one of the girls wailed “Ewwww” at my reflection. I didn’t have the self-confidence for it not to affect me and felt terribly ashamed.

All this to set the moment when Mom had – without my knowledge – scheduled that audition at the pseudo prestigious Fort Worth School of Ballet where in my mind it would only get worse! At this point it was an educated guess on my part. When she told me, my face must have lost all blood as I backed away fervently, repeatedly nodding NO without sound. She quickly reassured me with an “Okay…,” and called to cancel the appointment.

Mom finally understand just how much I loved dance but hated the teacher. So did the tights stay in the drawer? No.

She sought out Miss Mon Dieu’s competitor.

And the tights went back on.

The new ballet teacher invited me to take a class to determine what level I should be in. Oh, hideous experience! I couldn’t keep up with her students, the combinations were too fast, the girls, again, seemed so cold. Misery!

It hurt my pride but mercifully this new teacher, to my ultimate delight, simply told me she’d like me to slow it down a notch in her intermediate class. That’s where I met “Lana¹”.

Lana wore red and white polka dot socks over her pink tights and wrapped her point shoe ribbons around them. The new teacher, who was very kind, did NOT say Mon Dieu. She kept her French to naming the ballet positions and simply raised her eyebrows slightly to signal Lana’s error in dress.

Lana’s mother ran a theatre company, so Lana was steeped in creativity and rebellious to the formulaic. Lana didn’t care a whip about the girls in the Friday class or any class for that matter. When the new teacher simply smiled the “warning smile” not to wear them again, Lana just giggled back like she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar… but would still take a few cookies for the road – while Teacher watched. Yes, Thursdays would be better for me. I found myself looking forward to ballet again.

Ballet.

Mom had the costume of a ballerina butterfly.²

To take wing.

Mom was very introverted. She hid. When she’d take me to performances or pick me up from rehearsals, she’d always stand outside the stage door. She never came into the dressing room like many (many) of the other mothers did. She didn’t want to be seen as a Mama Rose.

But she did want to be seen. You can still want to be seen even though you’re hiding.

Unfortunately, the drinking got in the way of that objective. Thing is… when people don’t feel seen they begin to do things to make themselves feel better about how horrible it makes them feel not being seen. (Read that again.)

How did Mom make feeling invisible not feel so bad?

Wine.

And Vodka. (I only know that that based on the bottles randomly hidden between towels in the linen closet.)

This is probably a good place to pause. But I’ll just say you can’t make someone know they are seen just by saying “I see you”. But I’m a huge fan of starting there.

It is a radiant Love that sees you, that saw Mom too³. But you have to get to know that Radiant Love.

That, I believe, is why Mom was so touched when I told her she was beautiful when I was so young. She knew I wasn’t lying.

Ummm…I also told her I thought she was lazy once – as she put dirty laundry into the laundry basket…while on her knees.

I though lazy meant a person who sleeps in! I really did! It was probably a Saturday. So when I said this she was doing laundry - on the weekend - on her knees. Soooo lazy.

I quickly learned “lazy” did, in fact, NOT mean “sleeping in” and am lucky to this day she didn’t jolt my head back and forth on Ma Kettle’s washboard.

1. Name changed.

2. You should read “About those meanies who made you cry” to get the fullness of this moment.

3. Psalm 139, just google it. It’s all about how loved you are and how you have been known by God before you were even in your mother’s womb. A prescription for the melancholy spirit.