Flash Back!

To understand who I am as a writer today, it helps to look back on my origins. We won’t go all the way back to the moment it all began- I’m saving that for later- but I want to give you a glimpse into my past.

The Scene: 8th grade- Meridian Jr. High in Kent, Washington. The music my peers were listening to: Gangsta’s Paradise, the music I listened to … Yanni- the Dare to Dream album. Oh also, a healthy dose of Green Day, Sound Garden, Oasis, Spin Doctors and an obscure local band my brother Jay got me hooked on called Diamond Fist Werny.

My Signature Scent: (because Teen Magazine said it was essential) Sand and Sable. – I bought a small bottle a few years ago in a fit of nostalgia, and I dutifully applied before writing this. Time machine in a bottle. I could have gone for Baby Soft, Electric Youth, Windsong or Exclamation- but this particular scent seemed more sophisticated to my 14 year old sensibilities. 

My Teachers: (in no particular order) 

Mr. Richardson– A younger teacher all the girls seemed to crush on and the subject of my very own social experiment- (I successfully didn’t talk at all in his class for months before he walked into choir and discovered I was not shy after all. The jig was up.) His was the class I won Michael Jordan signed baseball in(from when he played the minor leagues). We had to answer sheet after sheet of sports questions until it was just down to me and David Meisenheimer… and he was unbearably smug about being the smartest kid in class and I just couldn’t let him win.

Mrs. Duress- A soft-spoken long term sub for our choir class. Our actual teacher, Mrs. Hartley, the stereotypical Wagner opera heroine, had to take the year off after surgery to repair her calloused vocal chords from a “lifetime of singing”. In reality, I think it was more likely from all the shouting she did at students. I once witnessed her shove a piano with such force that it bounced discordantly across the room until it hit the wall- and her birkenstock sandals had deep black toe and heel grooves… (I’m not sure why I remember that detail except that I found it mildly horrifying.) Anyway, Rosemary Duress was a gentle soul who really brought out the best in all of us.

Mr. Larabee– PE – first teacher to nickname me in an effort to encourage me to push harder. He was a good teacher, but every time he’d shout “WAY TO GO GRIFF!” I wanted to shrink. He was also fond of shout “AAaaand he’s ok!” anytime a kid got hurt and got back up, and providing a healthy outlet to solve adolescent social conflict by putting them in the wrestling ring together… kind of like a school sponsored fight…

Mr. Rock- He was a big guy who liked to make self-deprecating jokes that made me really uncomfortable. It was his last year teaching before he retired and was basically untouchable. He sent me to the office twice- we read The Osage Orange Tree and Alfred Noyes’ The Highwayman in his class.

Mr. Bartoli- Enormous calves- Think Tony Little, but shorter. He was the health teacher and in his classroom were posters with the effects of drug use- unfortunately, the one nearest his desk was  the poster of Steroids… and I couldn’t look at him without thinking of shrunken testes. To his credit, I abstained from all drug use, so it must have worked.

And- The star of today’s flashback- Mr. Heath- Math.

Mr. Heath, a cheerful man with a blonde curly mullet and an endearing lisp, sat at the overhead projector as I pushed my way to my seat. I unzipped my Jansport backpack and pulled my math book out to cleverly disguise the well worn spiral notebook beneath it.

I grasped “Excalibur” in my perpetually inkstained right hand, (Yes I named my pens, this was a beautiful parker ballpoint, one of the first refillable pens I ever had, it was teal and silver and had an arrow as a pen clip. I loved that thing so much) and began to unapologetically ignore his lesson in favor of writing. I was in the middle of my fourth novel-  a romance between a Centaur named Septimus (a 7th born son- see what I did there?) and his virginal love interest Constance. Looking back, I’m not sure what I was thinking- Centaurs totally creep me out now- I mean they have two rib cages! Also my 14 year old mind hadn’t tried to work out the mechanics of how exactly this unlikely duo would work. All that mattered  at the time was that they were in love and would overcome all odds to be together.

Side note: Recently my mom dropped off a huge box of my old writings and this 5 star notebook was in the heap of writing that I am really embarrassed about… Maybe I’ll transcribe some for you later. It was an epic fantasy novel and there is a reason I rarely venture into that genre…

As I was scribbling away, engrossed in my own little world, I got stuck on a word- I didn’t have the right word and the empty space on the page was beginning to itch uncomfortably. At that percise moment Mr. Heath looked up from his vis-a-vis pen and asked, “Are there any questions?”

My hand shot up into the air.

“Kelly?”

“Um, ya… what do you call the thing you carry arrows in?”

His eyebrows gathered.

“A quiver?”

“Ah! YES! Thanks.” And I happily went back to writing.

“Ok….” Mr. Heath went on, a little perplexed, “any MATH related questions??”

He gave me the requisite lecture about paying attention, which I heard very little of, and eventually went on to fail Algebra in college years later.

 

I have no regrets.

Curious: What do you remember about Jr. High? Did you have a signature scent or name your writing implements?