First off, Ms. Harrison, I want to tell you that I am off my Adderall tonight. I did not do this intentionally. My housekeeper accidentally knocked over the bottle containing my last three Adderall for this week and the pills went down the disposal and are gone forever and will take a day to replace. She felt really bad. I hope I managed to pay attention in class today but it was really hard, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I was not what you expected. It is very hard for me to finish anything I start when I’m off my Adderall, so the completion of this essay will be a sheer act of will done in your honor.
Secondly, I know we have to make an allusion to another work of art in this essay (which is a rhetorical device you love and that I’ve come to appreciate because good art reflects life and a good life reflects art) and I hope you can soften something inside yourself and embrace the fact that I’m going to use a YouTube video as my selected art piece. (Softening something is what David, my yoga teacher, always asks us to do when we are in a hard pose for a long time, and I always think that this is a ridiculous request to make of me since my whole body is soft, but now that I am writing this to you I understand a different meaning for “soften something.”)
If you had asked me to write an essay about high school friendships at the beginning of the year, I would have turned in something dismal that would have earned me a meeting with Marv, but now at the end of the year, I have a new perspective on the idea of high school friendships. And I’m going to tell you about it.
There is a YouTube video that you can find and should be called “Sassy Gay Friend: Hamlet.” In it, Ophelia is poised to drown herself when her sassy gay friend leaps on the scene and says to her in a very funny way, “What, what, what are you doing?!” (That makes me really laugh.) Then he says, “O-feel-ya-so bad for yourself, move away from the water!” (That makes me laugh, too.) He continues, “Instead of drowning yourself you’re gonna write a sad poem in your journal and MOVE ON!” (He says other funny things like “There IS something rotten in Denmark and it’s [Hamlet’s] piss-poor attitude!” (That is so true.) Anyway, by the end of the video, Ophelia is not going to kill herself and her sassy gay friend even tells her that her hair never looked better, and he couldn’t believe she was going to get it wet.
I have been where Ophelia was. I’ve wanted to just drown! (Also, I had a friend leap onto the scene [metaphorically] and save me [literally], and although my friend is gay, he is not sassy, but this is not the salient point of my essay.) I wish Ophelia really did have someone to tell her all the things that the Ophelia in the YouTube video is told so that Hamlet could have ended differently. Sometimes you need another person to help you shift your perspective. (Also, the point about writing in her journal was excellent. I’ve written a sad poem before and that might have helped Ophelia, but she would have needed to be patient because healing takes time.) I am glad I hung in there until a genuine friend appeared for me. My life may not be a full-out tragedy from this point, and my friend Daniel is a big reason why.
So, nothing about high school was what I thought. Nothing about my friendships was what I thought either. I’m going to try to not have too many thoughts about the way I think things should be. That is what my high school friendships have taught me.
Surprising Comments from Ms. Harrison: Once again, Danielle, I’m at a loss over how to grade you. This essay is not what I had in mind. However, I, too, have a close friend who has kept me from drowning and there is much truth in what you wrote.
*ME-MOIR JOURNAL* 6/19
Prom
Prom took place about a week before graduation. Daniel and I couldn’t believe we were actually at a prom and had dates. If someone told me in September that I’d be standing here in June, I’d have told that person to go back on his meds.
Daniel said he was actually happy to pretend to be straight just to have a culturally acceptable, socially packaged experience in order to be able to write a song about it someday and to tell the child he one day adopts with his beautiful, rich, and well-endowed husband, that his one father had gone to a prom with a woman—just in case his child actually cared about that kind of thing. He didn’t want to be the kind of dad that disappoints, he said.
I told Daniel I was not going to have children, and he said that would be a shame because I had such beautiful red hair and stunning green eyes and I should give those qualities a shot at continuing . . . not to mention the huge heart . . . which all made me cry and grab Daniel and actually take him on to the dance floor and dance.
I don’t know what anyone thought of us. I don’t know if people even talked about us; I didn’t care at all. I didn’t react anywhere in my mind or in my body when Keira and Jacob were crowned prom king and queen. They looked beautiful. Really. They had that kind of beauty that shows up in teenage movies and magazines. I could smell their freshness just by looking at them.
After the king and queen dance, Daniel grabbed my hand and we managed to sneak out through the kitchen, avoid chaperones, and make it to Daniel’s car. He grabbed his guitar and something else and ushered me, breathless from running, behind the science building and under a tree with low hanging branches. It was dark, but the stars were many because the sky was so clear.
We sat down and Daniel pulled out the one remaining joint from our night of sin. “No! Daniel, we can’t do that here. I can’t.”
“Come on, Danielle. Just to seal the deal. High school. Been there. Done that.”
“Ahhhhh. Why do you do this to me?”
“Because you are my fruit fly.”
“You snot. One hit.”
And so he lit the joint, and we took turns inhaling and staring into each other’s faces. I wonder if he thought the same thing I did—that I never imagined the face of my best friend would look like this. I never imagined any face after Emily’s, but I surely couldn’t have imagined his. Daniel has beautiful black hair, and he, too, has green eyes. They were piercing and cold, like frozen winter ponds, but they were the windows to the warmest soul I’d ever known. He was a gift from somewhere, from someone. Gay or straight, I love him, the way people are supposed to love.
“Sing me a song, Danielle. You really have a sexy voice.”
“I do?”
“Yeah. Even your speaking voice is sexy as hell. It’s all whispery and shit. Some man is going to go wild over it.”
I smiled. A real, true woman’s smile.
“Now start me a song, woman.”
In my green, elegant dress that was now more wrinkled and dirtied than I should have ever let it become, with my foggy head that was higher than I should have ever let it become, I sang.
There was something about singing into the night air that made me feel powerful and safe. A space inside me expanded. Daniel’s gorgeous guitar melody was so easy to feel, not just hear, and words kept coming out of me. I imagined them floating all the way up to the sky. In my mind’s eye, without trying, I saw Emily hear them, and strangely, I swear, I could hear the soft sounds of an oboe.
When our impromptu song ended, and the air was still cool and crisp and smelled of greenery, Daniel pulled out the joint one more time, but as he lit it, Ms. Harrison walked around the side of the building and stood above us. Something about the way she was there, about the way she moved in the darkness, made me feel like she had been standing there for a while.
I panicked inside and my heart beat wildly. Daniel quickly hid the joint behind his back in a futile attempt to save us and grabbed my hand as if to silence my heart. We both stared at my favorite teacher.
Calmly, but with purpose, Ms. Harrison said, “I want you two to get up, go back inside, and do not leave the prom until I give you permission to go. This evening’s festivities are to be enjoyed inside.”
I breathed an audible sigh of relief and choked back tears that had been building. Maybe Ms. Harrison wasn’t doing the right thing according to the school, but I was so grateful for her response. In my mind I said to her, I’ll never smoke pot again. I swear. Thank you for pretending like you don’t know what we were doing. Thank you.
Back inside, Daniel and I danced for a while, and then we talked to Marv. Daniel really liked him, like thought he was handsome, that kind of like. I told Daniel that Marv is an older guy whose business it is to probe into people’s psyches, and I thought that right there would be enough to turn him off.
Daniel said, “He is really dashing, Danielle. I’m not interested, mind you, because I’ve got this thing going with Jonas that I don’t want to ruin, but Marv is hot.”
“You’re wearing pot goggles. He is not.” But then I looked again and realized he was, and that my crush on Jacob had blinded me to the beauty that was right before me. I had wasted my lust on a lesser man!
Ms. Harrison made us stay until the last seconds of the evening. We had to become part of the cleanup crew, which was fine with Daniel because he wanted to talk to Marv nonstop. He moved beyond thinking he was handsome and said the guy was just really smart. By night’s end, Daniel was thinking he should study psychology instead of music. Men! (Although, Daniel would make a great therapist.)
At the end of the night, Marv gave me the biggest hug ever. It was nice. I was able to thank him with words out of my mouth and not on the page. I guess I’m evolving.
When we were finally allowed to leave, Daniel and I went to Iggie and Jonas’s house for a private after-prom thing instead of going to the Meadow Oaks party. Keira actually invited me to it, which was awesome, but I explained that Daniel and I had already made other plans. I had social options—wow.
When we got to Jonas’s, Daniel grabbed his guitar out of the car and took me around to the detached garage in the back of the house where Iggie was folding paper and holding a harmonica and Jonas was eJamming. I didn’t know what this was, but they explained it to me. Essentially, it is this online resource where you can play live music with random people all over the world. You don’t see each other like iChat; you just hear each other talk, sing, and play.
Jonas was playing drums while this guy in Germany who barely spoke English played the keyboards. Daniel joined in on the guitar and somebody in Arizona added bass. Occasionally, Iggie would look up from his paper creations and play the harmonica. It was literally an eJam. It sounded awesome, this world joined in music through cyberspace. Jonas handed me a USB headset and told me I should sing. It was a blues jam at the moment, and they said I should try to make up some sad lyrics to add to the mix, and I jokingly said that I had no experience with pain, so it would be better if we could just copy the stylings of some teenage pop star.
Daniel said, “Ha-ha. Channel Janis Joplin and start wailin’.”
I listened to them for a moment and closed my eyes. I got really calm and felt a stirring from this new music that was happening right now in different places on the planet, converging in this garage. And then, with my body swaying and my eyes still closed, I just started smiling and singing:
“He called me a cow.”
Ba-ba-da, bum-bum.
“He moo’d in my face.”
Ba-ba-da, bum-bum.
“Yes! He called me a cow!”
Ba-ba-da, bum-bum.
“I couldn’t run any place.
’Cause I got the Mr. Moo-ooo-ooo-Me
Moo-You blues . . .”
And then all the different sounds exploded, and Iggie really rocked the harmonica. All the guys started singing the “Mr. Moo You Blues,” even the guy in Germany, who added deep and lowing moos. This went on and morphed for at least forty-five minutes. At the end I felt sweaty and high, and I wasn’t even stoned. German man asked Iggie, “Ver’d you get da sexy sounding frauline?”
Jonas said, “She’s my boyfriend’s fruit fly.”
And the German guy said, ”Oh, cool” like he understood, but we knew he didn’t.
So, prom night was an evening of dressing up, dancing, getting stoned, singing, singing again, and then feeling stoned without any drugs at all. When it was nearly morning, Iggie walked me to the car so Jonas and Daniel could say good-bye privately. He made an elaborate, paper butterfly while we were all jammin’, and he gave it to me before he turned around and ran into his house. I stared at it for a long time and moved it in figure-eight motions in the air, so I could watch the delicate wings go up and down.
When Daniel finally got into the car, he grabbed my hand and smiled at me. We shared a long joyous stare and then drove home in silence because nothing more needed to be said for the night. As we pulled into my driveway, another line of Emily Brontë’s rose in my mind: “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
*CLASS ASSIGNMENT* 6/20
My College Choice Essay
(A)
Danielle Carmen Levine
English 12
Ms. Linda Harrison
Period 4
I know we’re supposed to wait until we graduate to call you by your first name, but I’m not really “calling you” Linda because I’m writing it. Hope that’s permissible. It’s a nice name. My middle name is Carmen, as you can see. It’s weird to think this is the last essay I will write for a grade in English class for all of high school. I have to just take a moment and let that sink in. New paragraph.
After many discussions at my house with my aunt Joyce and my parents, I’ve decided to go to UC Irvine. I don’t want to brag about myself in writing (although I think I’ve done that a couple of times this year), but I got a really high score on the verbal portion of the SATs (the math: not so much). The verbal score, I think, helped me get into colleges I probably wouldn’t have gotten into. I’m going to UC Irvine as a creative writing major. As serendipity (I love this word, thanks for fitting a few last minute vocabulary words into my head; I think they’ll come in handy) would have it, my friend Daniel got into UC Irvine and is going there, too, but he’s going undecided. My aunt said if we were sleeping together she would never let us attend the same college. But since that exchange is pretty much off the table because Daniel is gay, she saw it as all good.
Everybody is finding it very strange (even me) that I am going to go to college in the same area where, well, you know, a part of me stopped. You know from that one essay I read in class that a terrible thing happened to me in Orange County. I guess my mom had a talk about this situation with David, my yoga teacher, one day after class, and he told her that often you have to go back to a place of wounding to be fully healed. I don’t quite understand that, but I do feel like something in me is guiding me there. For one thing, their creative writing department is very good, and maybe I will learn how to be a better writer and do all the things you wish I could already do with my writing. I’ll e-mail you some stuff I write after I learn more (not that you didn’t teach me enough, just that I guess I wasn’t ready for all of it) and if you have time, you can tell me what you think.
So, I’m going to UC Irvine. I’m going to be an anteater. That’s a good mascot for me. I’m not ready to be a tiger or a Titan or anything that fierce yet. I think I’ve grown a lot this year, but I’m still scared about some things, and I’m probably always going to be obsessive and inattentive, so I have to “take ’er easy,” eat one ant at a time, if you will.
Comments from Ms. Harrison: Since there were no formal guidelines given for this essay, I will not lecture you on all the parentheticals and casual comments contained therein. I will just remind you, once again, to avoid “a lot” and “stuff.” Grow past that usage. Have a wonderful experience at UC Irvine. You deserve it.
*ME-MOIR JOURNAL* 6/25
Graduation
Commencement finally came for me. I wanted to wear my blue Chucks that I had recently painted the word abide across, but my father said I didn’t need those. He believed I was capable of going out in the world in heeled shoes, and, on my own, I could give over to the day and embrace the experience. After all, I had a hat—the graduation cap I would wear for this one day. I think I managed to handle things in a way that honored his wishes.
My parents dropped me off at the ceremony site early as was required for pictures and rehearsal. As I was walking in from the parking garage, Iggie appeared from out of nowhere. He threw an entire box of oragami art all over me. He didn’t say a word. I stood there as an avalanche of snow creatures—giraffes, fishes, birds, dogs, and even some hummingbirds fell on me and around me as if I were the centerpiece in a living snow globe. For a moment, I became my own favorite collectible. After Iggie ran away, before I could even thank him for this most amazing gift, I collected every paper masterpiece—all two hundred of them, such a great even number. I will have to spend more time inspecting this menagerie, and I’ll keep them forever.
Everyone in my class was delirious with excitement. Right before the ceremony began, we gathered in an annex that was part of the concert hall where our graduation took place. All of the students showered Ms. Harrison and Marv with gifts. They didn’t open them there, but when they do, I hope Marv likes the giant red clown shoes I bought him, and I hope Ms. Harrison can appreciate the box of temporary tattooes I picked out especially for her.
Ms. Harrison gave us last-minute instructions, and we met the bagpiper who would soon usher us into our places. She warned us that there were hundreds of people in the room, all there for us and that we needed to be on our best behavior. She had to confiscate two beach balls and a bullhorn from some of the boys. Even though our graduating class was small, it was clear we were well loved.
“The room is packed,” she said. “Stay in the moment. Try not to move around and crane your necks looking for your family and friends. Be formal as the day requires and your loved ones will find you afterward. I’m proud of all of you.”
After the bagpiper led us in, there were some speeches from school board members that nearly put me to sleep. But then, there was a video that showed a year-in-review. It was great, and I got emotional but was able to swallow my rising tears. Next, there was a performance by our sign language class. A group of seniors signed a song and then awards were given out.
I drifted off again during that section because I didn’t think I’d win anything. I was wrong. I won this year’s Meadow Oaks Writing Award! It was very surprising to me because I seemed to rarely be able to follow all of Ms. Harrison’s rules, and I thought that I frustrated her more than I made her happy. She must have liked what I wrote this year anyway.
Ms. Harrison handed me my plaque through genuine tears. I gave her a big hug, looked at her, and quietly said, “Thank you, Ms. Harrison. For everything. I will always remember you.” When I walked back to sit down, I saw that my classmates had stood up for me and that Keira was whistling loudly. This was the first time I ever got an award for anything. It was totally cool.
After all our names were called, after “Pomp and Circumstance,” that was when a big surprise came. All the organized ceremony melted into group chaos. Kids were looking for their families, people were shouting and laughing and crying. Keira yelled over people’s heads at me and said, “Hey, Danielle, your parents and other people are looking for you.”
My group finally found me. They pushed their way through. Daniel practically knocked me over when he hugged me. He was so excited about my writing award, so glad they didn’t give it to a quarterback, he said. When he let go of me, I saw around his shoulder: Aunt Joyce, Mom, Dad, and . . . Justine! I screamed. My aunt had flown her out as a graduation present to me, the best ever. There must have been some real dirty pool going on with my mail, but I am going to accept that because I was happy to see my beautiful, British friend. She was so excited to have “journeyed to California” and was looking forward to a few days with my family and Daniel—it was her first trip to the States. She was wearing a corsage, and I knew my father had bought it for her. I was glad he did.
Justine handed me a gift wrapped in heavy, coarse paper and tied with a string. She wove dried purple and blue flowers around the string; the whole thing was so lovely that I didn’t want to open it, but she begged me to. She clapped her hands together and rose up on her toes as I started to unwrap her gift, and we all let out a little giggle at cute, kid-like, eighty-year-old Justine. She just couldn’t wait until we got home for me to see my gift.
Before I got it fully opened, Justine said, “I want you to know that it’s been years since I’ve tried to paint and write in calligraphy. Oh my, I used to do it ages ago when my fingers worked better. But I had an idea in my head what I wanted to see come out on a page, so I made my doctor come over to my flat and give me something that could help my fingers work for just a few hours. Oh, but miracles.”
I told her that I was sorry she had to be in pain to make me a gift, that I didn’t want that for her. She said she didn’t tell me that story to make me feel sorry for her. In fact, she wasn’t sorry at all. Her sore fingers made what she created all the more meaningful and rich and that after living a little longer, I would see that in pain there are wonderous buried treasures if you are brave enough to dig. I wanted to stop for a minute and take in all that she had said and talk to her about it, but everyone was yelling at me to get the thing opened, so I did.
In a small, ancient-looking frame was a watercolor painting of a chubby, redheaded ballerina in motion. One of her hands was lifted above her head with her fingers spread in that graceful way that good dancers can do. From that palm, a cascade of colorful flowers fell to a blue stream beneath her feet. They made the water look like a rainbow. In the dancer’s other hand was an open scroll that had a Rumi poem written in perfect, tiny calligraphy. My family made me read the poem out loud to them, and even though there were hundreds of people in the concert hall, I only heard myself say: