Mute

 

I’ve always been teased. 

My dad always had various names for people other than their given name. That wasn’t unusual. But when the Chatty Cathy doll came out and I asked for one, he said, “We already have one,” meaning me. Everyone else laughed. I was hurt. And I never got the doll.

I had lots of dolls I didn’t ask for. I combed their hair until they were nearly bald, but otherwise took care of them. Some were kind of ugly, as far as I was concerned, but they were what I had, so that’s what I played with.

Tiny Tears was probably my first name doll. I’m not sure whether or not I wanted her, but she was a baby doll, and that’s what my mother thought would be good for me.

My mother didn’t often let me feed my dolls water because they all wet themselves, and she didn't like wet doll clothes all over. The difference with Tiny Tears was that if you fed her water, she cried “real tears,” too.

Of course, water wasn’t the same as milk. Since real babies drank milk, I wanted something that looked like milk. In my quest for something resembling reality, I ground up chalk and mixed it with the water. This was fine for all of the dolls except Tiny Tears. I didn’t realize, as a small child, that the chalk would also go to her eyes. As a result, I had the only Tiny Tears with cataracts.

 

                                                               
Chatty Cathy was a different story. You didn’t feed her. She actually talked. She came with a choice of blonde or dark hair, rather than the dull orange most of my dolls had. This was a chance to actually have a doll with dark hair like me. But my dad said no because I was the Chatty Cathy of the house. And that hurt. (Chatty Cathy Christmas Ornament, pictured above)

My mother used to say I was quiet. Of course, as I got older, people would tell me I talked a lot. Too much. Do you ever shut up? I know often I would start to say something and someone usually interrupted me before I could finish a sentence, and no matter how many times I attempted to tell them what I was trying to say, I was always interrupted, and never got to finish. That’s probably why I prefer being by myself.

I didn’t have friends. Oh, yes, there was a girl everyone called my friend, who lived across the street. She was a year and a half younger, which when I was four, made her 2 ½. Not someone to socially interact with. I played alone most of the time, unless my brothers were available.

That’s the only reason I was interested in dolls. They were my friends. I could line them up on chairs and pretend they were the audience, and I’d be a rock star. Or they were the patients when I played hospital. Or I’d choose one or two to be my sidekick for some game I was playing. They were never my “children.”

I don’t think I chatted all that much. I wanted to participate in the family chatter at the dinner table, but I was usually told to be quiet because I didn’t know anything. My mother told me once that she used to come in to my play room or out in the back yard to check on me to make sure I wasn’t dead because I was so quiet in my play. I “talked” my dolls in my head because I thought only crazy people talked to dolls or talked out loud pretending to be the doll answering.

I think, looking back on it, that my dad was just teasing – they never got me that doll! – but I didn’t know that then. He hurt my feelings, and no one seemed to care. I don’t think my parents considered much that small children have feelings.

My brothers also called me names. I was “Hey Ugly,” or “Hey Stupid” for no better reason than I was the youngest and fair game. But that’s what brothers do, so I’m told.

I know I had lots of questions as a small child, but I didn’t ask them. If I asked my mother something, she’d reply with, “Because I’m your mother, and I said so.” My brother, Rob would say I didn’t know things because I was stupid. I knew I wouldn’t be enlightened by my mother, and I didn’t want my brother to think I was stupid. So I kept my questions to myself, and tried to figure out answers that made sense to me. They were wrong, and to an adult me, they were hilarious, but my answers weren’t really a help to child me.

My mother always thought I was being a smart-Alec when I would look at the sky and the ground before crossing the street, but I was looking up and down, just like she said.

Often, since I didn’t have friends, I created friends in my head. I would have a whole imaginary scenario set up, and often forgot that others didn’t know about it. I’d make a comment based on my imaginary play, and people – especially my peers once I went to school – looked at me oddly and moved away from me.

School was supposed to be an amazing wonderland where I would not only learn to read, but also have lots of friends. It didn’t go quite that way.

I progressed through school with an attention deficit and mild dyslexia. They didn’t diagnose things like that when I was in school – especially not in parochial school – much less do anything about it. And I was considered fairly smart, so every problem was blamed on my being left-handed. My mother, working with me on reading, got me through learning to read.  Since the letters in the words were so large and the words were widely spaced, it wasn’t that difficult, once I got the hang of reading frontwards.

Problems didn’t show up until third or fourth grade when letters were smaller and more closely spaced. But by then I had figured out compensations that allowed me to cover. Still, I’ve always read slower than my peers because I have difficulty going from one line to the next, and sometimes the words move around.

Because we never printed, but used cursive handwriting, I was never found out because letter reversals weren’t a possibility. If they’d looked at my printing, they would have seen several reversals. But since we didn’t use printing in school, it didn’t matter.

By about 6^th or 7^th grade, I only had two reversals left, z and Q. I figured out a way to test the direction of z. Write Zorro, with the orro on the bottom line of the z. If the z came first, it was done correctly, and I could erase the other letters. If the o came first, I needed to erase everything and make the z the other way. Q, I never found a way to fix. Unless I had a Q to look at, it was a guess, and still is. I would stress over where the bottom line went. Finally, I’d just put it anywhere. Once done, it was always wrong.

I’ve now adopted that as my unique Q, and I don’t care. I’ve also been told my check marks are backwards. Until I was in college, I didn’t know there was a backwards or forwards for a check mark. I don’t care enough about them to fix them. It’s another signature thing I do.

My mother always complained about my handwriting. So did my teachers. I was doing the best I could, but, like art, it didn’t come easily to me, like math or English. I still get mixed reviews. My husband thinks my handwriting is pretty but illegible. Other people seem to be able to read it just fine. Of course, there are fewer and fewer people who can read cursive, so I suppose it’s better that most written things I have to give people are typed.

I was considered fairly intelligent at school, but I had no social skills. The first day, I was put in line with a sea of children, most of whom were crying. I didn’t know whether or not I was supposed to cry, since I didn’t know why they were crying. I knew from my mother that you weren’t allowed to cry without a reason. One of her favorite sayings was, “If you don’t stop that crying, I’ll give you something to cry about.” So I stood there, mute, wondering if I would get into trouble for not crying. I was relieved, once we entered the building, that the others had stopped crying by then, and I didn’t get into trouble.

Our first recess was a revelation to me. We had to line up with partners. There were two girls in my class that I knew. One, who lived in my neighborhood, and apparently liked first grade so much she was doing it for a second time, didn’t like me. Her dislike – and the way she plagued me the entire year – was because of something that happened a few years earlier at home, where she was forbidden by my mother to come anywhere near me.  As a result, she did her best to get me into trouble whenever she could.

The other girl I knew from church. But she was on the other side of the room, since her last name was near the beginning of the alphabet. So, I had to pick someone near me in order to have a partner before everyone was taken.

The girl in front of me at our desks was cute and littler than me, and she had a name I loved (Debbie). Those were reasons enough to ask her to be my partner. She accepted, and I thought that made her my friend. To my mind, we would play together once we were outside, and be partners in line forever. That’s not what happened.

Once we were outside, Debbie disappeared – apparently, she actually had friends. I wandered around, trying to figure out how to play the various games the other girls were playing – girls and boys were not allowed to play together at my school. I went from group to group asking if I could play until I found a group that didn’t say no. That is how recess worked for me for most of first grade.

I didn’t know why I was rejected, and never did figure that out. Maybe they thought I was ugly, like my brother said. At six, I was very aware of things and people either being pretty or ugly, and I was never told I was pretty, ever. I knew what pretty looked like. I had a cousin with blonde hair and blue eyes, and everyone said she was pretty.

I never went near groups of pretty girls. I knew they wouldn’t play with me.

When recess ended, I again stood next to Debbie, as I did every time we lined up for the next few days. Then my world crashed. One morning as I lined up with Debbie, another girl I didn’t know dashed up and said Debbie wasn’t my partner, she was hers. And she stole Debbie. I had been betrayed, and stood in line without a partner, crushed.

Sister wanted all of us to be partnered. I told her I didn’t have one. She made me go to the back of the line. Apparently, being a failure who didn’t have a partner was the most horrible thing a child could do. Once at the back of the line, she grabbed another girl without a partner, and pulled her next to me. After that, I would just wait until everyone else was lined up, and go to the end of the line, hoping someone would be my partner.

Recess was an odd world. There were all of these children who knew each other. I lived in a neighborhood where most of the girls were older than I was, except for the girl across the street. Just before I started school, another girl, Helen, appeared. She was also a year younger, and lived down the street. She was one of those children my mother called a street urchin because she was allowed to wander anywhere she pleased in the neighborhood, instead of having to stay in her own back yard, like I did. So, when I went to school, Helen essentially stole my only friend in the neighborhood because I wasn’t there. And when I got home, she often didn't play with me because she already had Helen.

The large globs of children tended to play together, and to protect themselves from outsiders, they would cross their game. Then if someone like me showed up, asking to join, they would say the game was crossed, so they couldn’t let me play. No one ever came up to me and asked me to play with them. (Crossing the game wasn’t the religious expression it seemed. “Cross, cross, double cross, nobody else can play but us. If they do, I’ll take my shoe and beat them till they’re black and blue. Cross!” Such a Christian sentiment for little girls in a Catholic school.)

The girl who had repeated first grade often walked up to me in the recess yard and told me I thought I was a big shot. I didn’t. How could you be a big shot if you didn’t have friends? She said that because I usually knew the answers when called on in class, and she didn’t. 

But it didn’t matter. Sister used to put all of the girls who were repeating the grade – I discovered there were several of them –  in charge when she left the room. My nemesis would invariably make me stand in the back of the room, and tell Sister I was talking. Usually,  Sister's habit hadn’t completely left the room  before my nemesis told me to go stand in the back of the room.

When she returned to class, Sister would ask why I was in the back of the room (I was never alone. There were usually several.) I would tell her I didn’t know. My nemesis would say I was talking. I would say I hadn’t been talking, and Sister would tell me to sit down. If I had been lying, there were plenty of people who would have said so.

Our first grade Sister apparently didn’t like boys, so she was severe with them at a time when corporal punishment was the norm in Catholic school.

When I was growing up, there were two churches that I knew of in the area: the Catholic church that I attended, and the Methodist church. The children who attended the Methodist church went to public school, so those of us in Catholic school referred to them as “the Publics.” And there were some Catholics who attended the public school, so they were also Publics. Being referred to as a Catholic or a Public was just a way of acknowledging which school someone attended, and there was no stigma attached. Many of the children in my neighborhood were Publics, so I never got to know them at school. But they were mainly older than I was.

By the end of first grade I somehow managed to have some friends, but I never knew from day to day whether or not they liked me. Sometimes they would let me play with them; sometimes not. The girl who had stolen Debbie from me ended up as one of my friends for a few years, but Debbie was more of an acquaintance for some reason.

I went through elementary school drifting socially from one group to another. The summer of 1964 I had a group of three friends who lived three or four blocks away. Two were in my grade at school. The other was a Public. We played together most of the summer, and often went swimming at one girl’s house. Her older sister - a teenager - belonged to the Beatles fan club, so she got the Christmas recordings the Beatles made each year, and had all sorts of Beatles memorabilia that third graders could only dream about.

We had a game that summer called Beatle wives. We each picked a Beatle. I had George, since Paul was already taken. They would pretend to be married to their chosen Beatle. I didn’t want to be married to anyone, so I pretended to be George. Because we’d listened to the girl’s sister’s Beatles Christmas recordings, where they actually talked, I learned how to do a Liverpool accent. Not bad for a 9-year-old. They were impressed that I could talk like the Beatles. (Only years later did I learn about inflection, British vocabulary and idiomatic phrases.) To anyone from Britain, my Liverpool accent was probably on par with Dick Van Dyke’s Cockney, but my friends and I thought it was good.

The nice thing was, they didn’t mind me being George and not being a girl. Whenever I played with Helen and the girl across the street from me , they would get mad at me for being a boy. They’d try to tell me I had to be a girl, and I didn’t want to be. And I always played the youngest, usually a boy named Michael.

After that summer, those friends drifted away. The girl with the pool was in the other 4^th grade, so she hung around with a new set of friends, and I really never saw the Public girl. The third girl (another Debbie) moved away.

My nemesis from first grade was still sometimes my nemesis, and sometimes – like when she needed help with homework – pretended to be a friend. I didn’t particularly like her, so if I were playing in my yard and she came over, I frequently hid until she went away. Often I was in the tree fort, and she couldn’t see me from the ground. My mother, fortunately, never gave me away. She assumed if I wanted to play with the girl, I would’ve made myself known.

It never bothered my mother that the other girls would sometimes decide to fight with me. They’d insist I couldn’t be whatever character I was pretending to be that day, or they’d make me pick whatever game we were going to play and then refuse to play that game, saying I always picked that one. It didn’t matter if I told them I didn’t care what we played. They were intent on having an argument. So I’d go home.

My mother often told me I didn’t need them, they were stuck-up. And eventually, I didn’t. I had enough pretend friends to have all sorts of adventures by myself. I’d ride my bike, pretending it was a motorcycle (balloons or baseball cards clipped near the wheels to make the engine noise), or go into the woods to pick blackberries, or play in the tree fort, pretending it was a space ship or an apartment or whatever I was thinking of that day.

I never quite figured out girls, although I could do the girl act pretty well by the time I got to high school. At least there no one ever said I thought I was a big shot.

An Open Letter

 

Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one in the world who is bothered by seemingly insignificant things that happened in childhood. I remember some very forgettable incidents, often ones that embarrassed me at the time. The thing is, remembering them, I am as embarrassed by what I did or said as I was at the time.

For me, time doesn’t really heal. It doesn’t make the truly bothersome little details fade.

No, I don’t remember everything that ever happened in my life, but people have frequently remarked, when I’ve told them something from my childhood, “How do you remember that?”

Well, I do because it still bothers me. And sometimes these things make me think that really I’m a bad person.

I remember happy things as well, or funny things. How do people not remember things they did when they were four? That was one of the best years of my life!

So, this month I thought I would attempt to exorcise a ghost from my past. It’ll probably give some a chuckle to think that I could recall something anyone else would have forgotten about by the week after it happened, at the latest.

Here is my open letter to my third grade teacher.

 

Dear Miss Betty,

When you dashed into the classroom and asked, “Who screamed?” no one was more shocked than I was. I had no idea what you were talking about. I did not hear a scream. I thought you were crazy. Perhaps it was something that happened outside in the hall, where you were, monitoring students lined up to get on the next school bus.

Here’s what happened in the room: Everyone waiting for the other buses was chatting quietly with those around them. We were standing or sitting. No one was being loud or running around.

Since it was the first week of school, we weren’t wearing uniforms yet. The sash on my dress had come undone. I couldn’t tie it behind my back. I wasn’t that good at tying yet. I asked Debbie to tie the sash. She did. She said something funny, and I laughed. I didn’t think I laughed very loudly.

Then suddenly you were in the room asking the question. Debbie looked at me and said I did it. I didn’t know why she said that. No one screamed that I heard.

No one admitted it, and Debbie was the only one looking at me. In fact, everyone else looked as confused as I felt. I was the last person you asked, so I assume you thought it was me anyway, and were giving me a chance to admit it. But I didn’t scream, and I didn’t hear anyone else scream. All I did was laugh. That’s why I didn’t admit it when you asked.

Why would I admit to something I didn’t do? But you asked everyone else and they all said no. The fact that Debbie kept saying I did it was the only reason I said yes when you asked. I didn’t scream. I just got punished for something I didn’t do.

I thought telling an eight-year-old to write a 100-word apology was a bit much. Quite a bit much. Writing 25 times, “I’m sorry,” and whatever else you wanted to make the sentence longer, would have been sufficient. I’m sure you not only didn’t count the words, you also didn’t even look at it. I’m certain that as soon as we were all out of the room you threw it in the trash. So much for overseeing a punishment.

I wish I’d explained it to my mother and she’d written a note on what happened. I wouldn’t have been able to write this letter when I was eight. I didn’t have the words. As it was, it took the entire weekend to write the apology.

Even if I’d had to write a punishment anyway, perhaps having me write a paragraph or two explaining why I had done what I did would have been both a punishment to me and a bit of enlightenment to you. Perhaps it would have alerted you and my parents that something was going on in my head that I wasn’t aware of, and perhaps needed attention. I doubt anyone would have done anything about it, though. I do know something similar has happened to me several times since, over the course of my life.

I have been carrying the resentment of the stupidity of the punishment, the certainty that after this incident you did not trust my honesty, and probably didn’t like me, ever since. I have also carried the desire to explain to you what happened all these years. There have been times when the memory of this incident has been part of what kept me up at night, knowing I could never set the record straight.

I liked you as a teacher. I thought, other than on this one occasion, that you were fair. I thought you taught me well. But I have always felt that this one incident put a wall of misunderstanding between us.

I’ve occasionally thought about what it would be like if we ever met once I was an adult. I know I’d bring up the incident. It was probably nothing to you. You’d probably say you didn’t recall it. But I’d have the chance to let you know how much of an impact it had on me, how much of a burden it’s been to me for all of these years. It might shock you how much it has continued to bother me. It shaped my beliefs about my teachers.

When people ask me about school, about favorite teachers, etc., I tell them I don’t think any of my teachers liked me. I don’t mean that they hated me. I mean that I was nothing to them. To some I may have been an annoyance. I think I was that to you. But I was never in anyone’s top 10, or even top 25 out of 50 students in their class. I really doubt that most of my teachers even remember me. I was that invisible.

Maybe this isn’t true.

I had the opportunity to contact a seventh grade teacher once, many, many years after seventh grade. I wanted her permission to dedicate one of my novels to her. She was the person who got me started writing.

She made us keep a journal. We had to write at least two pages each week. I usually wrote many more pages than that. And I would put a note in asking her to read my work. That was my favorite assignment. I’ve kept that journal and read parts of it from time to time. The pieces were awful. Perhaps it wasn’t so awful considering a 12-year-old wrote it, but some of it is embarrassing now.

But it lit the flame for me.

What I started as an assignment in seventh grade has continued to this day.

No, I’m not a famous author. I probably never will be. I doubt that anyone follows my books, or looks for new ones.

I don’t write in one particular genre. I simply write stories that I’d like to read. I write the books I can’t find in the bookstore.

And I’ve read my stories. I like them. Maybe I’m the only one. But there’s satisfaction in being able to tell a story, with befriending characters that are the people I always wanted to meet and never did. Most of them are people who, in real life, probably wouldn’t have me as a friend.

But my seventh grade teacher started me down that road, and I wanted to publicly recognize her for that gift. As I spoke with her by phone – she was an elderly nun in a nursing home – she gradually remembered a few things about me. She asked what my maiden name was, and when I told her, she did seem to remember me. So, perhaps I wasn’t as forgettable as I thought.

Maybe you would remember me. You might even remember the incident. But I doubt it left the imprint on you that it did on me.

Perhaps I’m too sensitive, and should have let it go years ago. But I never could. I needed to explain, and was never given the opportunity.

Some experts say that writing down something that preys on your mind will help you to let it go. I’m hoping that may happen from this letter, even though there’s no way to send it. I don’t even know if you’re still alive. But I don’t really have any expectations from this exercise. I’m just finally taking my turn.

Yours truly,

The little girl with the untied sash from the 1963-64 third grade class.