There’s a saying about how some friends are in our lives only for a season while others remain for a lifetime, and though it might be natural to assume the enduring friendships are the most meaningful ones, I don’t believe that’s always so. I changed schools at the start of second grade, something I was excited to do but the introvert part of me also dreaded. I knew no one, and honestly, I would have been happy enough to lone wolf it through the school year. But what I imagine lone wolves would tell us if they were able is that sometimes there’s safety in numbers, and survival is often tied to being part of a pack.
Even at the age of seven, children can establish a social pecking order, and after only a few days in my new class in my new school it was obvious who the line leaders and shot callers were going to be. The classmate who I was certain I needed to emulate in every way wore her hair feathered and straight, and her purse held every flavor of lip gloss imaginable. Most captivating to me was her blue eyeshadow and matching mascara, and my mama got an earful every day after school about how my life would be perfect if only I could be just like this little girl whose disdain for me she never tried to disguise. As Mama patiently explained to me why my frizzy curly hair with its cowlick centered on my forehead would not tolerate straightening and feathering and less patiently explained why a seven-year-old has no business wearing sparkly blue eyeshadow, I wondered why the Universe despised me so. Surely that was the only logical explanation as to why I wasn’t being allowed to follow in the footsteps of the coolest girl in class and secure my place as class monitor or eraser cleaner.
Never mind the fact that I was happiest wearing pigtails and my Mork & Mindy rainbow suspenders, and dirt was more at home on my face than any fancy cosmetic Avon sold, it was really tough being a new kid in a new place where no one was particularly interested in making me feel I belonged.
But then something magical happened in the second week of the school year. A student was moved from a neighboring class into mine one morning, who knows why. Her seat was two rows behind mine, and as our cursive handwriting lesson had just begun I soon threw myself into learning the ways of the mysterious and elusive capital Z (something I never mastered and lived in fear would be a much more integral part of my adult life than ever transpired) and forgot about the newcomer.
When recess time arrived and we were released onto the playground, the girl approached me as I claimed one of the coveted swings. “I’ll push you if you’ll push me,” were her first words to me. “Alright,” came my reply, and it was all the encouragement Dorothy needed to leap into action, a dazzling smile replacing her previously serious expression. While we took turns on the swing, I learned that Dorothy had six brothers and sisters and had figured out early on the value of knowing when to speak up and when to blend into the background. Her wide brown eyes missed nothing, and I loved the colorful elastics that secured the ends of her thick braids.
Throughout that school year Dorothy and I sat beside one another during lunch; she would discreetly take from my plate whatever meat was being served that day and eat it herself because she wanted to spare me the unwanted attention a vegetarian in elementary school in 1977 would surely attract. When word got out that Jeff in fourth grade had told somebody to tell me that he wanted to talk to me at recess, Dorothy said not a word when I took a left toward the custodian’s closet instead of a right toward the door leading outside, although she had to have seen me slip quietly into the tiny room to avoid the embarrassment of being approached on the playground. Once recess was over and I’d crept from my hiding spot, she never uttered a word about it. Dorothy saw all of the weirdness in me and accepted me anyway. We lost ourselves in shared reading of The Boxcar Children series during quiet time and made bets about whether chocolate milk would be on that day’s menu. She even came home with me after school once and we spent the afternoon playing with my model horses and exploring the woods around the house. At the end of the school year when the popular girl passed around invitations to a pool party at her house, neither Dorothy nor I were shocked by our absence from the guest list, although if we’d had the vocabulary and courage to admit it back then, it stung.
In time I learned that it was a compliment not to be included by people who are unkind, and I stopped pining for the “right” clothes to wear to earn approving glances from classmates. Unfortunately, I lost touch with Dorothy when her family moved away the following summer, but even if I’d been able to say goodbye to her I would have lacked the self-awareness to thank her for taking a chance on me that day at the swing set and for looking beyond our differences that school year to be exactly the friend I needed. She was a friend I had only for a season, but what she taught me about compassion and affirmation has remained with me far longer than my cursive handwriting skills.
PartWolf 