A Mother's Mantra

Or, Bury My Ashes In The NYC DOE

I am unsure about a lot. Like, what final image will sweep my eyes when my time comes. Or what will be for dinner tomorrow or when the pile of finished-but-not-folded-laundry in the living room will be put away. I have no clue how to survive another news cycle or national catastrophe, but I can tell you what I know.

There will always be a woman in the office of a public elementary school who is older than the rest and doesn’t like to smile. But if you happen to walk in on a morning when no one has bothered her and her coffee is still hot by the time she gets to take her first sip, she might let one slip.

The smell in the cafeteria still hasn’t changed: a tomatoey fried undertone with a hint of something else. The stacked tower of boxed chocolate milk cartons, on a half-melted layer of ice in a metal baking pan are still waiting to be drunk.

Every DOE building is a maze of stairs that go the opposite direction but still take you to the same place. A strange sorcery occurs often, where you turn a corner and suddenly enter into an entirely different school. Small bodies still feel pride when they figure out how to navigate their way to the gym or library, finally sure of themselves in the massive space.

My elementary school no longer exists but it was called The Bridge School, (Bridges to us) and lived on one floor of a larger school building. Bridges was a pilot program intent to integrate various arts into foundational academics. We had electives like yoga, where our teacher lead a short meditation at the end of our class. She came around the room and rubbed the essence of lavender on our foreheads. We learned that being still in our minds was the foundation of critical thinking. We participated in Dancing Classrooms, the competitive ballroom dancing program that came into select public schools. They taught us to move our bodies in sync, no matter how different our brainwaves worked. Ballroom dance was discipline, a crash course in how to fall in line but still stand out.

When it came time for middle school, I was waitlisted everywhere. My friends were all preparing to move on to their various next schools while my future remained unsure. One day, our principal, a small blonde woman named, Sheila, called me into her office. She wanted me to know that the principal from the school I most wanted to attend, East Side Middle School, had called and asked her to chose the Bridges student who would come off the waitlist. She chose me.

Middle school is where I learned the unique beauty of a group of girls. We moved in a bunch and figured out how to put on pads and whether we liked boys or girls or both. We protected each other and loved each other and fought with each other and had massive slumber parties. In middle school I whispered in class and got in trouble. I laughed with my friends as a medicine and a chorus.

I’ll tell you what I know.

The teachers are still there. The ones who have eyes on the whole room and stick discarded scraps of scotch tape on the edge of their desk because there will always be a child with something that needs to be fixed. The ones who scan to find the heart that needs the tighter hug and the weird who needs the extra encouragement to continue being themselves. The ones who confirm the whisper you have been holding in, that you are amazing, and that special feeling you have is true. I had teachers like that, but I also had teachers like Mr. Feldstein.

He was the type of small white man who needed to feel big, so he taught kids at the cusp of their pubescence. One day, he asked me to stay after class, he selected me along with another classmate to appear on the local news to speak about the first amendment. The only thing was, he said, I had to re-dye my hair to my natural brown from the pink or purple or bright red I was sporting at that time. He said I could not represent his class looking the way I did.

The principal at ESMS was named Denise and she was the opposite of Sheila. Denise was over six feet tall with a helmet of thick curly hair. She policed the halls like Ms. Trunchbull, always roaming, but the next day, I found her. I read a statement to her and Mr. Feldstein in which I reminded them that the first amendment includes freedom of expression and it would be quite hypocritical to suppress the very right he was asking me to give a speech on, wouldn’t it? I remember the look on Mr. Feldstein’s face as Denise and I stared him down, a weasel cornered. He snuffed and shrugged and sure enough, I was on the news with my bright colored hair.

Middle school was where I learned how to deal with that kind of man.

I was thirteen when Mr. Lyons taught us about Goethe and Thoreau, he encouraged us to write big. For me, there was no goal bigger than to become an eighth grade speaker. It was a tradition for each homeroom to elect two students to give a speech graduation and usher us all into high school and young adulthood. When the time came for the election, I stood in front of the wall-length blackboard with the rest of the self-appointed nominees and watched as my peers voted for me and a girl named Kate, who I didn’t know much at all. I hijacked the thirty minute brainstorm session we were offered, outlining exactly what we were going to do; this three-minute script was my legacy. Over the years I have often wondered about Kate and whether she thought about our graduation day when we stood behind the podium together, as often as I did.

Then, twenty five years later, I saw her at a preschool pick up. It took me months to work up the courage to approach her and on the morning that I did, Kate and I walked two avenues and caught up on the last two and a half decades. We talked about the unexpected emotional response we experienced when we went on elementary school tours. The way the sameness washed over us, a comfort and relief. I felt compelled to apologize for being so bossy with the script in the eighth grade, but she said she didn’t remember it that way. She said she couldn’t recall much about the whole thing, really. I remember it all. The way every joke landed exactly how I had planned in my head and the raucous cheer at the end. I told her that was probably one of the best days of my life. A few hours later she texted me, she found the speech somewhere in the annals on her computer and sent me my first script.

I’ll tell you what I know, now.

I didn’t grow up in a hugging family or an ‘I love you family.’ When my parents separated, we became a broken family. A broke, broken family, which meant there wasn’t much time for anything. Definitely not feelings, certainly not affection, but my parents loved me the way they knew how. They introduced me to art and books and music and theater. They worked tirelessly at multiple jobs to provide me with immense opportunities and comforts.

One of the greatest loves my parents shared with me is the absolute refusal to give up on their passions. I sat in off-off broadway theaters and watched shows my mother and her friends created. I even performed in one somewhere downtown—I can’t remember much more than I had to do the Macarena. My father typing poetry late into the night after he finished his second job was the sound I fell asleep to. My parents did so much more than provide for me, they found me the right schools and I travelled to them, no matter how annoying the commute. I think luck is a part of my story too— luck that I grew up at the right time in the world for that kind of childhood. Luck that so many people have had my back along the way.

I have a lot of guilt about bringing my children into this specific version of life. I wonder if the rights to their bodies—rights I didn’t expect to lose in my own lifetime, might still be restored and solidified in theirs. I wonder how long I have until they will be as scared as I am at the growing violence and complacency I see everywhere. I have a lot of fear that people seem to have forgotten to have each others backs. There is no way I will have an adequate answer when, down the line, my kids ask me, ‘why?’ and ‘how?’

So, I will simply tell them what I know.

That I love them and I want to hug them all the time, but when they are ready, the best half of living is simply discovering. That learning is the greatest form of self-care; a never-ending opportunity to expand inside your own skin and bones. That they will find their voices and rhythms and they will dream every night of their friend’s smiles. That they will feel a swell inside strong enough to fill some inevitable gaps after they learn how to pick up a book and fall into a story. That the other half of life is figuring out how to face being uncomfortable and challenged and inspired and brave. That I walked through the same heavy doors of the same type of confusing building and came out stronger and better and softer and I know they will too.

If you want an essay like this to hit your inbox every week-ish, hit the subscribe button!

Until next time, stay real,

Natasha