welcome was the d a y l i g h t
Inhale.
Beginnings are vague things; a collection of incremental incidents woven into a quilt of happenings so sluggishly that you don’t realize it until whatever’s begun has ended. And, of course (as that is the way of things), endings are always so much quicker. Sprint across the street –oh, what’s that, no, wait, pain- end. A flash, a crash, a finish. But, I’m going off on a tangent now. I was supposed to be talking about beginnings.
It was the first day of third grade, and I was eight years old, with a gap-toothed grin and hair in my eyes. I sat down in a desk near the front of the classroom, because the blackboard was blurry if I stood too far away, and I still cared about what the teacher was writing. There was a set of initials carved into the corner of my desk –JS- and I traced them with an absent finger as I waited for the teacher to realize that her classroom was now inhabited.
She stood up with a painful wail from her chair. I can faintly recall feeling sorry for it; Mrs. Whidman wasn’t the slightest, nor the youngest, of teachers in the school, and I reckoned having to hold up her weight for the eight hours a school day was composed of would probably hurt me a bit too. Then she began speaking, and, if I had to choose a single moment to encompass the beginning, that would be it.
She called you up to the front, and you got up from out of the seat directly behind me (I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed you before, to be honest), and shuffled hesitantly up to the front. Your hands were clasped together behind your back -the epitome of bashfulness. There was a purple-and-yellow flower screen-printed on the front of your t-shirt. I could tell it was new, because the inked image caught the light of the fluorescents and shone in that way only new things do. Ms. Whidman said something about you being new to the school (obvious), and proceeded to instruct you to introduce yourself with your name and three interesting facts.
Amanda Rayen, you’d whispered, so that only the front row would be able to pick up anything greater than a murmur. (Thank my eyesight.) I got a puppy over the summer, I like volleyball, and my favourite colour is purple. Truthfully, as interesting facts go, yours were pretty mundane. Moving on and offering thanks, Ms. Whidman proceeded to tell us to “[we] welcome you to the class”. We swallowed the words and regurgitated them in unison, like an out of tune orchestra.
You sat back down behind me, and I felt the thump in the soles of my shoes as you slumped onto the desk. I felt a rising urge to turn around, to squeak out a greeting and my name, to welcome you, not only to the class, but also to myself. Be my friend, I wanted to offer, with a freckly outstretched hand and a gappy grin. But, I didn’t –the lionheartedness of youth had already deserted me at that age. Sometimes I wish I had. Perhaps things would have turned out differently. I grasp at straws, sometimes, I know.
(It eats at me anyways.)
The sweet taste of September gave way to the dark chocolate bitterness of October, and I still hadn’t braved a hello. Recesses were for King of the Hill, attempts at basketball, and the trading of cards with funny imaginary animals on them. I watched you from afar sometimes –yes, I know how disconcerting that sounds, but I shan’t sugarcoat truths. You got on well with the other girls, or that’s how it seemed to me, at least. What do I know, really? There seemed to be quite a bit of communal hair braiding going on, at least.
Halloween rolled around eventually, as it tends to do, with funny leaps and bounds and retrograde motion. Ms. Whidman organized a classroom Halloween party, and bid us to bring in candy for our friends (id est, everyone). She likened it to an early Valentines’ Day celebration, and that was, I believe, when the seed was sown. As I’ve mentioned –it’s difficult to tell with beginnings. But, nevertheless, a positively resplendent idea slithered its way into being on my neural pathways, like a glittering, brilliant snake. Write her a note, it hissed temptingly, just to say hello.
So I did.
I spent the entire trip home kicking my legs anxiously against the grey, plastic bus seat. (I feel sorry now; the poor thing did nothing to deserve my abuse, except for, occasionally, smell.) When the yellow beast ground to a halt at the worn green bench that signaled my exit, I veritably sprinted off the bus, much to the relief of my seat companion, I believe. Anxiousness tends to be infective.
Once home, I grasped for the house key in the bottom of my rucksack, reeling it from the depths like a prize catch. Inserting it in the door, I let myself in, shucking my shoes by the doormat and racing to the kitchen table. I grabbed a Post-it, a (purple) pencil crayon, and proceeded to stare blankly at the yellow square in front of me. There was so much I wanted to say that it had gotten dammed up at the entrance –so much I wanted to say that I could say nothing at all.
In the end, all my mind could dredge up from the overflow was this:
Dear Stranger,
You are new in the way flowers are new. happy halloween.
(p.s. don’t eat too much candy or youll get sick and that would not be good. Trust me I know I did it last year.)
I stuck it to a chocolate bar, and brought it upstairs, placing it on my bedside table so that I wouldn’t forget it later.
Later came, and we were all instructed to grab our candy last period, and parade around the class in an orderly fashion to distribute our sweets. I tossed your chocolate bar on your desk in as glaringly nonchalant a fashion as possible, and sat down at my desk, hardly even noticing the confectionary collection arrayed there. I’d always scorned the expression relating anxiety to butterflies in one’s stomach, but I understood it then. They fluttered around painfully, trying to escape up my windpipe and out into the air. I believe I may have actually opened my mouth to allow them an exit, and so rid myself of the dreadful sensation.
You got the note.
You read it slowly, and I watched with growing alarm as your brow furrowed, eyebrows drawing inwards, pinching the skin between them into a sharp V. Hands moved of their own volition beneath me, knotting together into a mass of tugging and pulling fingers. Then your mouth split into a smile –a delightfully crooked one, with teeth in all directions and lips pulled higher on the right side of your mouth than your left. And then you looked up from the note and I realized all at once that I was staring, and that was NOT OKAY with capital letters, as my mother had told me, so I turned around, quick as could be, and absorbed myself in the candy in front of me.
But I was smiling, too.
I wonder if you had it figured out already. Probably –I always was the clueless one, wasn’t I? (Still am, to tell the truth.)
(More so than ever.)
October rushed headlong into December, then dripped slowly into January. That year was the first time I hadn’t drifted off before midnight –my first real New Year’s celebration. I counted down from ten with my parents and older brother ranged around me in the living room, closing my eyes at five. Four. Three. Two. I felt a spring coiling in my chest. One. I remember still how my eyes flew open at that moment, casting around for the rent in the universe. A new perspective, a change in colours, something. But time just continued to tick along as per always, same as ever. It was disappointing in a way I couldn’t place; like a sharp cube of dissatisfaction sitting ill in my left ventricle.
School started up again, and I still couldn’t shake that feeling. It trailed me like an extra shadow, drawn with ink and sown to the backs of my feet, leaving dark stains on the ground as I dragged it along. We had a new seating arrangement, and Ms. Whidman had placed me at the very back of the classroom. I don’t quite recall your location –only that it was not by me. I couldn’t see you (but, then again, I couldn’t see much of anything). My grades started to drop, and it took until March for Ms. Whidman to figure out the cause. (How could I have known? I thought I saw the world like everyone else… blurry ‘round the edges was all it’d ever been.) She wrote a note on thick, card-like stationary, and sent it home with me. I presented it grudgingly to my mother, who clucked her tongue like some kind of bird, and took me out to get eyeglasses on the weekend.
I wore them grudgingly; they were thick-rimmed with black plastic, and were perpetually sliding down the bridge of my nose, as if they hated my face as much as I detested them. They had the peculiar ability to make me look at once like both an old man and someone half my age; drawing together the distant future and past and taping them together in a disconcerting juxtaposition. A parody of what my face should have looked like. And, I think, I hated them most of all because they were a constant reminder of my failings. They were to my sight as a cane is to an old man, and I hated having to lean on them to see the world.
On Monday, I arrived at school, glasses clutched in one hand, a rebellious frown tugging my lips floorward. I was not going to wear them –I refused, flat-out, as I had told my mother that morning, with crossed arms and a milk mustache from drinking the remnants of my cereal. No. She had merely mirrored my expression and smiled, and there was a vague, tickling sensation pricking below my ribcage, like I was being mocked, but didn’t quite understand how.
Perhaps it was because she knew the inevitability and rapid approach of my failure.
I was tugged in with the tidal wave of children streaming in through the front doors at the bell, and deposited at the door to my classroom. A few kids had already seated themselves inside; some leant back against their seats, trying to catch up with the previous night’s sleep, some alert and positioned forward, ready to lap up as much of the information presented today as possible. I stood outside. My hand was getting sweaty from gripping the glasses too tightly.
I don’t quite remember how I ended up in my desk –it feels rather as if I was teleported against my will, tugged and tethered there by some unwholesome magic. Ms. Whidman got up to start the lesson, first inquiring about the state of my eyes. My frown deepened, but I did not dissert her question; lying to teachers was still taboo at that age. She smiled at me, giving birth to a second chin, and prodded me to put them on. My face would not comply and deepen my expression of distaste, so I simply sat there without reaction. Silence reigned in the classroom, and I could feel nineteen pairs of eyes boring into me with unveiled curiosity. One beat. Ms. Whidman tugged her face downward, bringing into existence yet another chin. Two beats. Now my hands were definitely sweaty, and I resisted the urge to wipe them on my pant leg. Three beats –she opened her mouth to say something, perhaps my name. I never got the chance to figure out what, because I brought my hands up, slamming the glasses onto my face with a force that made my eyes water. My lower lip was tugged into my mouth, to be chewed on, a reminder to not cry. Jutting her chin forward, Ms. Whidman smiled jovially and thanked me, before turning her back and beginning the lesson.
I sat in my desk at the back, resentment and anger burning like hot coals in the pit of my stomach. The other students released me from the grasp of their eyes slowly, and embarrassment was tossed into the mix as well. I felt like crying, felt the tears pricking maliciously at the corners of my eyes. I bit my lip, and sank lower into my seat. That was the first time that I wished to disappear completely.
And, even though I could see the board with crystal clarity, the desire to contribute had run dry. I sat in silence for the rest of the day, and many more to come.
Third grade bled into fourth, and I had begun to forget you (I’m sorry –I promise it won’t happen again). You were in my class, yes, I noticed you enough to catalogue that, but you were no longer the subject of my interest. You were just another one of the girls; they’d assimilated you, cut you down to fit the mold. The potential was still there, but it was fading, and you had shown no desire to harness it. I wanted to scream at you, voice hoarse with exasperation and anger. You could be so much more. But I didn’t, because that was RUDE with capital letters, like my mother had told me.
This story is becoming lengthier than I’d anticipated. I always have had a tendency to ramble, and that, copulated with an inability to distinguish between important events… well. You’re reading it. (No you aren’t –I wish you could.)
Seventh grade, now. Four years since you sprung into my life in the way of flowers, in full bloom. You had withered since then, and I despaired. But you were a perennial, and so made your eventual return. (It’s amusing, in a sick sort of way –ironic would perhaps be the better term- that I label you as such. Perennial, when not associated with horticulture, is a word that is supposed to mean enduring. Lasting for a long or apparently infinite time. The word is sour in my mouth, and I am resisting the urge to replace it. It is not fitting.)
Nevertheless, it was the beginning of seventh grade. October, just like last time. It took you four whole years, but you finally returned the favour. I arrived in class one day, late in the month. My glasses were sewn together with tape now –had been for a few months. I wore a baggy sweater and there was a hole in my left shoe, revealing the tip of a once-white sock. (I apologize for my disreputable appearance. I do hope it was not a reflection of my character.) I slumped into my desk, exuding preteen rebellion, and thrust a hand inside to reel my math textbook from the depths. My hand brushed an unfamiliar shape, out of place in the organized chaos. I dipped my head down to investigate, and saw a chocolate bar, with a yellow sticky note taped to it. Something jostled in my memory, a flicker, a firework, a flame. I pulled it out to inspect it further, and everything slid into place. (Funny how that happens sometimes; I wish it would now. I miss the feeling of sudden understanding. I miss the feeling of understanding at all, really.) I turned the bar over to read the note.
Dear Stranger,
I am sorry for the wait. I would justify it if I could, but I can’t, so I leave you with a heartfelt apology. Your note brought me a happiness that I’d been missing for a while then. I was spurred to write this response because I thought you might need that selfsame dose of happiness right now. You don’t look happy. Maybe I’m misreading things, and, if so, I apologize for my pretentusness pretentiousness. I write this letter as a means of finding a way back. Leading you back. Because, you know, it’s okay not to be okay. I never realized how beautiful footprints were until they became the sky.
(You always were determined to show me up with your eloquence, even then. Your note ground mine into the dust.)
My eyes slipped off of the last word, and my mouth opened unconsciously, as if to utter a reply. But I couldn’t find the words –I never can, really. It is one of my greatest flaws, I believe; I think in intuition and bright splashes of colours and sounds and feelings, but when it comes time to package those thoughts into words, I can never seem to choose the appropriate vessel. It’s either far too large, full of hot air and dust, or far too small, so much of the thought leaks out onto the pavement, and is lost. I swallowed thickly, feeling frighteningly out of my depth. I was reasonably certain I was about to lower the floodgates, and terror jangled warningly in my stomach. Not in class. Not in front of all these people –peers, friends, teacher- they had not earned the right to see me in so many pieces.
My chair clattered to the ground, and Mr. K looked up from his place at the blackboard, pausing in the math equation he had been beginning, brow furrowing quizzically. He began to form a word –my name- but I never gave him the chance to finish, sprinting out of the classroom and down the hall. I was shaking, all over, and shame had dyed my ears and face a dark red. I slowed my pace, as so not to attract attention to myself from the classes of students I was passing by. My hands were clenched into tight, trembling fists, and my lower lip was feeling the pressure of my teeth against it. I think I heard someone behind me, perhaps in hot pursuit, but I never acquired the chance to verify, as I pushed open the heavy wooden door to the bathroom, striding across the grimy, tiled floor to lock myself in the only stall that still retained a door.
I collapsed unceremoniously on the seat, pulling my legs up so my feet sat on the seat edge, so that no one would know I was in the room until, of course, they tried the door. My head fell to rest on my knees, and I began to cry with a ferocity that hadn’t been drawn from me since I was five and was not constrained by such social stigmas that disallowed me from emotional displays. I sobbed, until the knees of my jeans were soaked with the salt of my tears, and breathing became a difficult and all-consuming activity. I drew air raggedly into my mouth, forcing it down into my lungs, where it was cycled into my bloodstream by my rapidly beating heart. My eyes stung painfully, face uncomfortably wet -a mask of dried tears. I raised my head, taking a few more gulps of air in an effort to regulate my breathing once more, before I pushed myself off the seat, feet landing on the floor as my hand reached forward to unclasp the lock. I dragged my unwilling body out into the main bathroom, turning on the sink and dunking my head into the stream of frigid water.
Relief. It washed over me with self-attributed cleansing powers, and I stumbled next to the paper-towel dispenser to dry my face. Dread had settled dully in the pit of my stomach, a leaden brick that threatened to pull me floorward, and I stepped out into the hall with hesitance. I could not return to the classroom. The shame and embarrassment would swallow me whole.
Welcome was the daylight. It settled over me, rinsing away the last vestiges of whatever-that-had-been, and I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the chilly, late October air. Leaves crunched underfoot as I increased the distance between myself and the school. I was done for the day –done. The school would very likely call my home later on, and I would be berated loudly by both of my parents. Then they would ask for an explanation, one that I would be unable to provide because the last remnants of my pathetic pride refused to let me describe how I had broken down in a bathroom stall for no reason at all over a sticky-note letter some girl had given me. (I likely wouldn’t be able to find the words, anyway.) But, I let the consequences stay in the future, and I allowed myself to explore the present. Then would be then, and now was now. I rambled aimlessly through the town, attracting a few curious looks from older people who were clearly wondering why I wasn’t in school. Guilt began to prickle across my skin, but I brushed it away forcefully. There was no way I could have gone back in that room. (If anyone was to blame, it was you, for writing that note. But I never could bring myself to blame you –still can’t.)
I wandered until I happened upon a park, alighting upon a swing and curling my hands around the cold metal chains. They burned pleasantly, and I did not draw away. My hands numbed slowly, and I rocked the swing back and forth gently. My breath was visible as a cloud of white, and I amused myself by pretending I was a dragon, blowing smoke rings, watching them evaporate and reminding myself that I was very much alive.
My response to your sticky note read as follows:
Dear Stranger,
Its okay. Y’know, I thought I was pretty happy. I mean, why shouldn’t I be? What about me looks not happy? I’m sorry about rushing out of class a few days ago after I read the note –it might have made you worry that you did something wrong. (I don’t know how you think sorry if I got it wrong but I did say ‘might’.) It wasn’t your fault, I was just… I don’t know. I’ve never been good with word-expression. I’m glad my note back then made you happy.
This time, it did not take you four years to write a reply. Four days, instead. (I still wonder if that was purposeful.)
Dear Stranger,
Why should you be happy? I’ve never seen it to be a cause and effect sort of thing; you can’t buy happiness by trading in good and bad things. It just sort of happens. I don’t know why. And, the way you sit makes you look unhappy. You’re sort of hunched over, curled inward, braced against the world. Your hair is long because you want it to hide your eyes because they’re the window to the soul (or something) and you don’t want people to see there. You don’t talk much in class, and the conversation I’ve heard you making with your friends has been sort of empty. I don’t know –maybe I’m misreading things, or looking too deep. But you asked. And, I’m glad too. I didn’t like being unhappy. It might sound silly, but, back then, I had firmly attributed hamburgers to my deep-seated melancholy and resolved never to eat them again. I still haven’t, in case it comes back.
Many notes followed those four, and I felt the unhappiness being chased away slowly. You held it at bay, you know –you were my lantern in a sea of fog. (And now I can’t see anymore.)
It took until early ninth grade for me to work up the courage to kiss you. We had moved on from sticky note letters to texts and then to words. You were as eloquent in person as on paper, and I was even less so. For some reason, you never seemed to mind. (I will never understand why you put up with me.)
It was late October (it always seemed to be late October, didn’t it?), and the bell had just finished signaling our dismissal. It was still ringing in my ears as I spotted you in the hallway, packing up your bag in front of your locker. I watched for a moment, teetering on an as yet unknown precipice, before taking the plunge and sidling up to speak to you. I hadn’t seen you all day, because you were taking advanced classes, and I could not compete on that level, no matter how much I wanted to, if only to see you shine. You turned as the sound of my feet against the linoleum met your ears and a smile crooked the corners of your lips upwards. You had gotten braces since third grade; I must admit, I missed the misalignment of your teeth. Students swarmed all around us, displaying the entire spectrum of desperation, all straining to escape. Get away, get away, get away. Usually I would have been with them, leading the charge, in command because the sheer fever of my desperation had others in awe. But today I didn’t want to leave. I never wanted to get away from you, and I never quite figured out why.
There was a flower on your shirt that day, and it was new, because it caught the pallid light of the dingy fluorescents in the way only new things can. Your hair was done up in a messy ponytail, and there were dark purple bags under your eyes. You had not yet caught on to the notion of makeup –something for which I was glad- and so you were not yet hidden beneath that mask of uniformity. By general standards, you were not beautiful. (But when have I ever conformed to general standards?) My mind deserted me then, and I leaned forward, almost sent toppling backwards by the counterweight of my backpack, and closed my eyes. My mouth brushed yours, and my heart stopped beating for a moment (it did, I swear!) because I suddenly became aware of what I was doing and oh gosh I was kissing you and that was NOT OKAY with capital letters like my mother had told me. I began to pull back, pull away, and was ready to run, to sprint, with shaking limbs and a head full of fire, when you kissed me back.
You weren’t a very good kisser. But, then again, neither was I.
For a year, I was happier than I can ever recall being, and you weren’t just a lantern in a sea of fog, you were a lighthouse, guiding me home, vanquishing the shadows entirely. (I attribute my aptitude for maritime metaphors to my origins on the country’s edge.)
Then the end came, and, as always, it was so much quicker than the beginning.
You sprinted across the street – oh, what’s that, no, wait, pain- end.
You were hit by a car crossing the road on New Year’s Eve on a journey to the corner store for fireworks. They told me the next day. I did not cry –how could I? You weren’t dead, they were lying, trying to tear me down, provoke a reaction. Then the funeral came, and I saw you lying on that plinth, in my uncomfortable black suit jacket and tie, and reality came crashing down around my ears. Your body still looked broken, despite the hardest efforts of the mortician to display you in a position of false serenity. Not dead, merely sleeping. They buried you, and I cried as I watched your parents cling to each other, friends stand solemnly side by side, mascara leaving ugly black streaks on their faces. (See –makeup never was worth it.) Even some of your teachers had attended, and they gave short little speeches as well, about how much potential you had, how you were a beautiful young woman who had been going to change the world. I didn’t need to hear their words –I knew it already, and their words were a poor vessel for the feeling beneath them. (You could have changed the world, you know.)
Then it came time for my speech, and I stood there with sweaty, shaking hands and tear tracks on my cold face as I read the following:
Dear Stranger,
You were new in the way flowers were new. I once attributed you to a perennial and I wish that metaphor had rung more truly. You pulled me back from an edge I didn’t even know I had been standing on, and showed me that happiness is something you can’t buy –you can only find. Nevertheless, I shall never eat hamburgers again.
I can’t believe you are gone and yet I know you are, all at once. I breathe a little bit softer now, because oxygen reminds me I lost you. I wrote you a letter in the October of third grade and you replied in the seventh. I kissed you for the first time in the ninth and many times since, and now I never will again.
I’ve never been good with words and you were always eloquent far beyond your years; if one taped our conversations together they would make a startling juxtaposition. You were the candle, then the lantern, then the lighthouse, and now nothing. Who will hold the fog at bay now?
You were the daylight, and you climbed through my heart’s windows and cleared the smoke that billowed out. And, there was one thing that I never said to you and I wish I had, more than I can express (which, admittedly, isn’t much of a feat). No, it is not ‘I love you’, because that is the sort of thing that you shouldn’t have to say for it to be known. I want to say thank you for leading me back.
I finished my speech and nobody clapped –not to my surprise; it wasn’t exactly a clappable sort of speech. I like to think that you would have enjoyed it, although I’m most probably being far too generous. What I wanted to say was that I remembered the way you smiled so crookedly, and how I knew your flowered shirts were new both times and how hard it hit me when I finally realized that, remarkably, you too are sinkable. I am still waiting for the echo of mortality to finally reach me, and I think I’ve lost my happiness again, because I sit hunched over and my hair’s grown long and I talk a lot about little at all. I am eighteen years old, and I am going to graduate from high school tomorrow and be thrust out into the world. I do not feel prepared –I am absolutely terrified. I can’t do it, because I can’t see anymore. The fog has swallowed me whole and I am searching for the daylight but I can’t seem to find it. Maybe it’s gone –maybe it left with you. You would always say otherwise. Nevertheless, you should be here too. You were going to change the world, but you only had the chance to change mine and that isn’t fair. Why were you not allowed to touch the lives of every person on this planet for the better? You were the daylight, but now dusk has fallen.
I still cannot pinpoint the beginning, but it is there somewhere, in the jumble of memories I keep locked in a casket deep beneath the surface. Maybe I’ll find it someday, and maybe I won’t. It doesn’t matter, because it’s there somewhere, and I know it is. Just like it doesn’t matter that you’re gone (what am I saying, of course it does), but it matters less that you’re gone because I know that you were here. And, maybe it’s selfish of me, but I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
Exhale.
