Testing My Mettle

During quiet time one Fall day in second grade, we (the students) toiled away on our assignment in complete silence as the teacher, Miss Grover, worked with the remedial reading kids in the class. We were instructed not to talk and to just work on our assignments alone. Unfortunately, I was in desperate need of a purple crayon to finish my project. I got up, walked up two desks to my friend Denise's desk and in a very low whisper asked, "Can I borrow your purple crayon?" She nodded her head and I returned to my desk, crayon in hand. When quiet time was over, Miss Grover walked up to the front of the class and began to write a couple names on the board. Not for good behavior. This was Name-on-the-board-because-you-are-in- trouble. She wrote my name up there. I sat in utter dismay and confusion. All I had done was borrow a purple crayon to complete my assignment!

I raised my hand to ask what I had done and she silenced me, not letting me speak, nor did she tell me exactly why I was in trouble. She gave me that look of "oh, you know what you did" and left it at that. I raised my hand again and asked to be excused to the restroom. She complied and I ran as fast as I could out of that classroom, down the hall and straight into the arms of my Mom. She worked in the school office. I cried and cried trying to tell her how I had been wronged through my gasps for air. I was mortified.

I am a good girl. I follow the rules. I play nice. I am kind to strangers. I have very good manners. My parents raised me to be this way. And thirteen years of Catholic school did its number on me as well. I was the girl the teachers put the bad boys next to year after year. I did my homework on time. I didn't cheat or skip school or lie. I was the one who led by example. So, something as trivial as getting my name on the board in the second grade was incredibly scarring to me. It was like: But. . . I am the GOOD girl. How can this be happening?

I tell you this story because I can't tell you the truth of what happened to me yesterday even though I desperately want to share it. What I can say is- take that story, multiply it by 500, add about 24 years of wisdom and personality, throw in a dash of incredulousness and an afternoon of crying and you probably have close to what is going down for me. I am in the thick of something and it is . . challenging, to say the very least.

This quote is currently sustaining me:

"Your silence will not protect you."

Thank you, Audre Lorde.