January 27, The Birth of A Friend(ship)

18 is divisible by 3. It is also divisible by 6, and 9 and 2, and if you take 2 away from the sum of 9 and 6 you get 13. 13 is the number of years that I’ve known a girl named Heather. Heather was a tiny blonde with bangs cut at a perfect 90 degree angle to her ears. She wore dresses. I wore jeans that had to have the grass stains washed out of them repeatedly. Heather packed her lunch; I bought. We were definitely opposites. Even the way we approached playtime was different. Heather wanted to create elaborate romances between her Barbie and my Ken doll. I wanted to make them fly around the house.

We met in Mrs. Ditzlers’s afternoon kindergarten. On one of the first days of school, Heather needed someone to play with and my mom, standing nearby as “Room Helper” volunteered me. I’m told, though I can’t remember, that after being introduced we took hands and walked away to find something to play with. That must have been a glorious moment for Heather in our friendship. I’m not a big fan of physical contact. I have plenty of theories about why that is, but they’re only theories. Heather, on the other hand, loves to hug, to hang, to cuddle, to rub, stroke, pinch, grab, hold, talk about a hands on learner. I let her invade my personal space for a couple of years before drawing the line. How many friends do you know of that make rules about hugs?

When I think about my friendship with Heather, one of the first things I remember is sleeping over at her house. I loved sleepovers at the Shertzers. The night would start with chocolate. We’d make sundaes or mint chocolate milkshakes, or, on special occasions, we’d have Pelman’s triple chocolate cake washed down with tall glasses of milk. I remember that I liked the glasses at her house. They were actually glass, and they were tall like the glasses my parents drank out of. At my house, the kids drank out of plastic cups that had attachable sippy lids, and we kept them in a drawer by the fridge, not a cupboard next to the sink.

After snack, I’d borrow one of Heather’s bathing suits and we’d go sit in the hot tub until we turned to prunes. There was a specific procedure for getting in the hot tub. We’d get towels from the bathroom and go down to the basement, leave our towels at the door to the patio, run out into the cold, take the cover off the hot tub, and then wipe off our feet before entering the warm water. Once we were in, we’d talk about boys and gossip about the other girls in our grade, talk about God, and disagree about God. We’d admire our legs and confide that this year we really were going to buy bikinis.

There was always a special sleepover at the end of the school year where we would write in each other’s yearbooks recounting our embarrassing moments, remembering our inside jokes, and finally confessing our appreciation for each other. I stopped buying yearbooks when I entered the high school, when the price jumped a good fifty bucks. So for the four years that we’ve missed, I think it’s time again to recount embarrassing moments, remember inside jokes, and confess appreciation.

Heather, do you remember the picture that I put on the back of that poster I made you for your 17^th birthday? If there weren’t a photo of it, it really wouldn’t have been an embarrassing moment, rather normal for us actually, but that wasn’t the case. Remember sophomore year in the fall, screaming and crying and half laughing outside the bathrooms near the cafeteria? That should have been embarrassing, but we were so worked up we were completely oblivious to anyone that may have seen or heard us. Remember the night there was a tornado warning and we had to run to the basement only half way out of our dress up clothes? I was embarrassed, sitting on a chair in your basement in my underwear; you should have been embarrassed too, but not for the same reason, because of the fit you were making about the possible tornado. Remember prom, and how our dates were chucking mints at each other and catching them in their mouths and Mr. Pritcherd had to come over and tell them to knock it off? Why weren’t you embarrassed? Remember in AP art when I wore a dress with shorts underneath and I mooned you and Teddy? You were actually embarrassed that time.

Inside jokes, well… you know what has to come first, “You just gotta do it till it won’t do it no more.” Then there’s our classic, strawberry banana or strawberry kiwi. Big butts that keep us warm in the winter. Full moons, and bicycles, although, that could be an embarrassing moment. It seems like there should be a lot more. There probably are, but I’m kind of anxious to move on to the next part of this yearbook entry.

Heather, you’ve known me through all of my different phases, the Aeropostale phase, the tomboy phase, the athlete phase, the religious phase, the depressed and doesn’t want to have fun phase, the short hair phase, the jell pen phase, the Barbies and pumpkin muffins stage. You knew who I was and when I was trying to be someone I wasn’t and as fickle as I was, and still am, you stuck around. You called me out when I needed it and didn’t want it, when I needed it and wanted it, when I didn’t need it and didn’t want it. You took me shopping when I felt bad about my clothes. You taught me how to make chocolate peanut butter eggs, how to escape a flood, and change a tire. You may have made fun of my cooking, but you still ate it. You are a good friend Heather Shertzer, and I want you to know that I wouldn’t trade the time we’ve spent together for anything. You have been such a big part of my life, from childhood all the way to adulthood now.

The other thing about the numbers from the beginning is that if you add 18 to half it’s value, you get 27, and that’s today’s date, the birth date of Heather Noel Shertzer, loud laugher, chocolate lover, fashion goo-roo, natural blonde, and friend. Happy birthday Heath, and welcome to adulthood. 

Marching and Metatarsals

Mr. Landis is the quiz bowl coach. He knows everything. Today he read off a question that happened to be a biology question, not exactly a rarity in quiz bowl, but this question was. It was a once in a lifetime biology quiz bowl practice question, a question I understood. I didn't get to respond though because Gage buzzed before I could believe that I actually knew the answer. I can't remember what the question was anymore. I actually don't remember what the answer was either. What I do remember is that one of the possible responses was "metatarsals".

Now, let's assume you aren't a quiz bowler and you aren't a science nerd either (congratulations, you have successfully evaded one of the most prominent high school cults alive today). Maybe you are so far removed from biological rhetoric that "metatarsals" is an entirely new word to you, or maybe you just had your anatomy and physiology final, and you still can't remember what metatarsals are. (If that's the case, I hope you failed.) It doesn't really matter why you don't know it; you just don't. And that's okay because I do, and I'll be defining it for you shortly. Metatarsals are the bones in one’s foot that connect to the phalanges, phalanges, another word from my biology vocabulary, meaning toes in this instance. Metatarsals are only found in the foot, but today, science was wrong because I found metatarsals in a quiz bowl question. 

How long it had been since metatarsals had crossed my mind, too long for such a delicious word to be gone. I vowed to never let it escape me again. There was something march-y about it, very rhythmic. After quiz bowl was over and I started my small sojourn to the other end of the building for gym, I found myself thinking "met-a-tar-sals, met-a-tar-sals" to the rhythm of my step. 

It was 7 AM and I already had a word to march to for the day; that taken care of, the "Being Flustered and Disoriented While Trying to Settle into Daily Routine" portion of my morning was largely eliminated from my day. I stalked through the fluorescent lights and stagnant smells of high school with purpose, first mouthing the words and then finally singing, "Met-a-tar-sals, met-a-tar-sals." There's probably medication for that kind of behavior, but as strange as it may be to sing a word as I walk, keeping a beat and therefore keeping order in the midst of the disgusting disorder that is high school, I'm a happy kid. I don't go to counseling. I don't need to. I've found my cure and today it was metatarsals.

Since marching can only truly be accomplished by creatures with feet and metatarsals are located in the foot, feet were at the front of my mind. I've always liked my feet. I'm a Good Foot pure-blood. Both of my parents have nice feet, none of that extra-long middle toe business. Our toes descend perfectly in height from the big toe down to the pinky. 

I have other qualifications for good feet besides the height of each toe, like size. It's important that the feet in question not be too big, but it is equally important that they not be too small. Good feet also have to have smooth skin that's never dry, but never clammy. Good feet have toes that turn olive-brown in the summer while they're running through the backyard. Good feet slip quietly in and out of shoes without disturbing nearby noses. Good feet stay on their side of the bed at night. Good feet look good with purple toenail polish and toe rings, and good feet never wear sandals in the winter, unless those sandals are accompanied by socks.

I started thinking of all the feet I'd ever seen, splotchy red and white feet, long and skinny flipper feet, circle toes like tree frogs' feet, red and hot and sweaty feet, pasty wan and freezing feet, stuff gets lost between my toes feet,  let's curl up and cuddle feet, hotels that stink in Spain feet. They were disgusting, all of them. "Take them away!" I ordered from the throne where I sat as the Queen of Good Feet, but as they filed out the door, those feet managed to kick over my throne, sending me soaring through the air. My own feet broke the fall, and I was balanced again in no time. "See! That's what we're here for," they chided in huffy breaths, "Now get to class." 

Ah yes, that's what I was doing. I looked up from my clogs in enough time to see the student I had just bumped into, the one whose feet had toppled my throne, looking back at me from over his shoulder. Metatarsals marched me onward to gym class were I sat down and listened, yet again, for the omission of the quiz bowl team's latest victory on the morning announcements. I might have been upset walking back to the locker room that for all the early mornings with Mr. Landis, we weren't even considered a sports team, but it's hard to be angry and sing "Met-a-tar-sals, met-a-tar-sals," at the same time.  

Life is Like Trees

Life is like

Trees cuz it burns to the

Ground if the smallest of sparks and

Dry weather compound and ignite to make flames

That can eat life alive and send columns of smoke upwards

Into the sky. And though flames tear ‘em down, and the

Sight isn’t pretty, trees to ash on the ground, a new

Life is ready, to grow from the soil that

Harbors the seeds

Flames may

Be destructive

But there

Will always

Be trees

The Death of Mice at the Hands of Men

I caught the mouse

Whose tiny claws

Scratched daily

My apartment walls

Strapped to the wood

By bar so tight

His fragile body,

Dead to fight

How harmless now

That mouse did seem

Soft fur and tiny paws

I wondered why

I’d ever sought

To kill the mouse

At all

How I Got Caught

Sprint across the carpet. Careful through the kitchen. Up and down the hallways. Stairs: Bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-BUH! Perfect landing. Running again. Closer, closer. Reach out a hand…Thud. We fall to the ground. Laughing. No, crying. “Mom!” Then, bowed head. Whispered apologies. Booboos and kisses. All better. If only words could mend the way kisses used to. Now it’s not hearing, “Mom!” that means I’ve been caught; it’s conjunctions like “so…” and the sentence, “I wanted to talk…” always left open, like an invitation to yell “STOP!” It’s the point where things change, though I hoped they would not.

A Typical Day in 100 Words

MEH! Click. Rustle. Flip. Lights, bright. Car. School. “Let’s discuss… meeting’s adjourned.” “Did you get the homework?” “Let me show you.” Run, kick, breathe, change. Ding! Paint, pencil, graphite, pastel, paper. Silence. Ding. Brush, brush, rush, rush. Squeezing past. Safe at last. Sit down here, write until lunch. Noise so loud it’s like silence. Safe again, ponder a poem. Ding. Right left right left. Calculus jokes. Find the volume of the solid created when the area bounded by the curve… 8.532? Try again. Listen. LISTEN! Integrate, calculate. Ding. Rush brush. Heave hoe. Slam! Safe inside the car. *sigh* home. 

Guest Player

I slammed the car door on my leg today. It ripped the tights I was wearing and the skin underneath the tights. A small bubble of blood peaked out at me from the inside of my leg, red and angry as if to say, "What are you doing letting the cold in?" I apologized to the red blood cells I had disturbed and bowed my head in appreciation to the white as they brandished their swords to fight the army of infection that was marching in through the small breech in my skin. We were all a little peeved at the early morning disturbance, but we smoothed our ruffled feathers and set to work repairing the broken skin. About an hour later, I looked down to see how things at the construction sight were going. The Platelets had arrived; a hard scab was forming. Those guys were so dependable. What a team. I decided a raise was in order, steak, potatoes, spinach, broccoli. Heck, maybe I'd just eat a couple of nails for dinner.

I pulled a pair of knee-highs out of my purse. They were grey and blue. I was wearing brown and white. I put them on, covering the hardened scab that would substitute for my skin for the next week or two, and then I finished off the "Nothing I Own Matches" look with a pair of converse shoes that belong in the trash. I spilled red paint on them once. The spill looked like someone else's angry blood cells, and even though I knew it wasn't, I still felt a little defensive toward their bright red belligerence. Head up, ignore the shoes.

I got back in the car to drive home, pumped some tunes, and sang at the top of my lungs like it was my heart that had been broken and not Sara Bareilles's. Back at home, I pulled in the garage and turned off the car halfway to the end of Gonna Get Over You. Feeling the need for some closure, I finished the end of Sara's song in my best opera voice, only sort of mocking her. I put away the stuff that had been in my car and found myself in front of a mirror. I turned my leg to face the reflection and admired the newly constructed scab from a distance, pretty beautiful. "How did we do that?" I asked the team. Nobody answered. They were safe inside my skin once again and couldn't hear me.

I sang a couple more songs but only half heartedly, dropping out and humming when I forgot the words. I thought about my chords. I had a pretty nice set. I put my hand to my throat and sang a couple notes. "How do you guys know how to make the right sound?" I asked, but all they said was "Oooooo, How'ma gonna get over you."

I always thought I was The Boss, that I ran the show, that the team was under my direction, but I hadn't called the Platelets when I shut my leg in the car door. I hadn't armed the white blood cells, and I didn't even know how a voice that I had previously believed to be mine could sing a high G. I would have stepped back from myself, but when I stepped, so did the team. "Woah," I said, and they all nodded. "So then... who?" but the scab was in place and they were safe inside my skin.

Red

Red hears jealous whispers as she steals away attention

From Black and Brown and Tan in their colorless detention

Red starts the battle cry and pours out waves of passion

She gives and gives and gives leaving stains of violent fashion

Red loves without condition, wildly and free

Less her lover be the dull and suffocating green

Paired with green she’s boring Brown that sits beneath the grass

Till she digs her way to freedom and she’s Red again at last

She’s so used to attention and aware of her own glow

That should Blue choose to ignore her, unimpressed by her show

She’d splatter everything she saw with blinding bravery

And though the world be watching, still feel neglected and unseen

She’d Red, she’s bold, she’s brilliant,

Everybody ought to know

She’s Red she’s bright she’s gorgeous

And it shows

It shows

It shows

Depends On What Kind of Leader You're Looking For

I could command the attention of a room and direct a group to a consensus. I could stand in front of my calculus class and convince the confused that the area under the curve of the function f(x) is the integral of…, but I’ve found that leadership is the hardest for me when dealing with relationships. It’s easy enough to stand in front of a crowd and tell them what’s what, but it takes a different kind courage and strength to forgive, to confess, and to confront. And to conjure up that kind of bravery is no small task. 

We are Friends

             I’ve had a lot of different friends through high school, changing from class to class and lunch period to lunch period, but there are two girls who have been constants, Heather and Rachel. Heather has been my friend since afternoon kindergarten when my mom volunteered me as a playmate during recess. We ended up sticking together through elementary school, mostly because Heather was good at telling me what to do, and I was good at doing what Heather said. Together we chased the boys around the soccer field at recess, dominating the play because of our early grow spurts and pointy elbows. We soloed to the song Silver Bells at our school’s winter concert with the Orff Ensemble, and spent the night at each other’s houses like best friends do. It wasn’t until middle school that I realized Heather was controlling. I’d never known any different. We had a hard time working it out, but by the time we entered high school we needed each other again, and so our friendship was reborn. We’ve come a long way since elementary school. I’ve learned to stand up for myself and make my own decisions, and Heather has learned that unlike playing Barbies, she can’t control every one in her life.

             While Heather and I were thrown together by circumstance, Rachel and I found each other. Rachel was always around. We grew up going to the same church, eating goldfish out of the same bowl for snack, and we were in the same class all the way through middle school and into high school. Rachel was invited to the same parties that I was. Her friends were friends with my friends, and my friends were friends with hers. Still for all our connections and similarities, we never really knew each other.

I can’t pinpoint a moment when my friendship with Rachel began. Somewhere between 9^th and 10^th grade we started saying hey to each other in the hallway and sitting beside each other in class. When I think back on it, I can’t remember any transition from being in the background of each other’s lives to being friends. It just happened, almost like it was meant to be. I had always admired Rachel for her confidence and quirkiness. She was never afraid of laughing too loud or wearing anomalous pieces of clothing. There was no one she couldn’t talk to. While most of my classmates, including myself, lived by the unspoken law that only certain friends from certain groups were allowed to converse with each other, Rachel made jokes with the Latinos, a group she most definitely did not belong to. She gave nicknames to the basketball jocks, who were above her on the social ladder, but rules never applied to Rachel.

It was my friendship with Heather, my friendship with Rachel, and Honors English III that brought all of us together. We met up for a class project on the American dream one weekend, and after that, we were a family, a sub-culture all our own within and without the walls of Conestoga Valley High School. Heather would honk at me in her purple van as I coaxed all of my belongs into the back of my Camery at the end of the school day, and I would join her in the second row of the parking lot as she blasted music from the Sienna’s speakers. Together we would dance and whistle to get Rachel’s attention.

After the dancing got old and the parking lot empty, we would laugh at how silly we were and then head back to my house for an after school snack. Our friendship came so easily. The dynamics of three flowed in a way I had only ever experience with my two sisters, and it was beautiful.

Acceptance

"I can assure you I'm not from 'round here,:
He said to the man as he blinked back a tear.
"That's a'ight sunny. Ya don't ha-fta be,"
Replied the good fellow as he smiled with glee.

"How welcoming," said he, the man not from There
"That you would accept me, that you would not care
'Bout the diff'rence between us or the tales of my past
Finally, I'm wanted, I'm welcome, at last!"

"What's that about diff'rences?" questioned The Man
"The people from Here, we're the same 'cross the land.
You'd be welcome to join us. We want ya ta stay
Just as long as ya promise you'll do what we say."

"What do you mean? I'm not sure I agree.
If we come to an issue and different sides see
Then I'd like to take my side and you can have yours
And we'd still love each other 'cause that's what love's for."

"Well that's not how it works here in this land, my friend.
We don't do love like that. We don't break we don't bend.
Everything's set in stone, and if you disagree
Then you just can't be part of the people called We."

This upset the man greatly for he'd traveled for days
Searching for a people who'd allow him to stay
He needed a family, needed a home
But he shook the mans hand and traveled along.

Smells of home
Smells of bliss
Smells of silent loneliness. 

Smells familiar
Smells forgotten
Smells that rise from loose earth trodden. 

Smell the past in present form. 
Smells like this are not the norm.

Eat them quietly and think 
About the things to which they link

Moments that were here before
The smells could bring you back for more.