That Could Never Happen Here

During my junior year in high school, I started taking college courses, so that after a full day of honors classes and marching band practice, I drove across town to get credit for Intro to Psych and Microeconomics.  It was on that drive, one warm April afternoon, that my Top 40 pop songs were interrupted by breaking news.  Reporters and law enforcement had swarmed to a Colorado high school, responding to shooters inside, murdering their classmates and teachers.  I was perplexed, the same way I would feel on another drive a few years later, listening to the report of airplanes flying into the World Trade Center.  My thoughts were jumbled, trying to make sense of the notion that apparently this happens now.

Denver Rocky Mountain News

People were quick to talk about the WHY, whether the blame lay in bad parenting or violent video games or intense bullying.  It never seemed like much of a mystery to me, with our unformed frontal cortexes and hormonal surges, the anger and loneliness and grandiosity that hid behind our smiles on Picture Day.  The next day, I returned to my high school with a certain amount of fear.  It felt like anyone with access to weapons and a big enough grudge could storm the building and open fire.

I showed up in the school office, where I helped the secretary take attendance and filed paperwork for the vice principal.  We usually talked during the 45 minutes we spent together each day, although in the wake of Columbine, our conversation centered on the tragedy that had taken place on the other side of the country.  Almost 20 years later, I can still remember her words as she looked at me that morning.  "There were BMWs in that parking lot," she said.  As news helicopters had filmed students fleeing the building, her eyes had focused on the makes and models of cars the students had driven to school that morning.  "There are BMWs in our parking lot," she continued.  The peaceful, secure illusion of our affluent suburban town had shattered for her.  If it could happen in Littleton, it could happen here.

I'll admit, I had several years of not following breaking news very closely.  There have been incidents of violence and murder that have flown under my radar.  Yet every school shooting, every child gunned down on a playground or in a classroom, the thought has resurfaced:  that could happen here. Now that my own children are enrolled in our local public school, I watch the enhanced security measures that are put in place each year, the reinforced doors and student dismissal procedures, I hear about the "man with a gun" drill from my 6 year old, and I wonder how truly effective any of it is.  Because THAT COULD HAPPEN HERE, is another lock enough to stop a person with a loaded gun and a mission?

I said my usual prayer this morning as I dropped my boys off at their school, as I watched the police cruiser in the parking lot and the children streaming into the building, dressed up for Picture Day.  I prayed for their safety, for their teachers to be able to do their jobs in peace, for every child showing up at school that day to make it through the day unharmed.  An hour later, I saw the story, reported by our local paper.  It happened here.

Amid the confusion and the fear, there was that same sentiment that my high school secretary had expressed so many years ago, the shock that something like THAT could happen HERE.  As though the price of your home or the designer labels inside your clothes can protect you, as though money can buy your family happiness and inoculate your children's minds from corruption, as though some invisible barrier exists around your zip code and protects you from human nature, from the very worst that we are capable of.

Today was a typical day for our little family, inside the walls of our home.  But it was a very different story across town, on my Facebook feed, as parents held their children close and sirens and helicopters were heard outside.  The danger is all too real for a new group of families, for another community, as questions swirl and peace of mind is long gone.

On Nicknames

I love a good nickname.  One that rolls off the tongue, that you can't help but remember.  I wanted a nickname for the longest time.  Something better than Rachel.  Something that would remind me of a great moment, a funny story for years to come.

Because children are cruel but not very creative, I (like many of you, I'm sure) was given a taunting name in elementary school.  My last name rhymed with rabies...sort of.  For a while, I was Rachel Rabies.  Or Rachel Has Rabies.  It did make me want to start biting people.  Fortunately, we moved, and the name didn't come with us.

What did come with me was my sister, who decided to make a play on my middle name; for years she called me "Elvis snores" and later shortened it to Elvis.  I wonder if she even remembers the origin of this name, which she occasionally still calls me to my face.  (When she actually talks to me, AHEM, Sister, you are IT in this one-sided game of phone tag!)

In high school, I tried to give myself my own nickname.  It came to me suddenly, something cool and unique.  I asked my friends to start calling me Ramacious.  I tried to make it work, but it didn't catch on.  You don't get to pick your own.

My college roommate jokingly gave me a "Black Girl Name", but since it was "Rach-a-Mange", I killed that one quickly.  It didn't sound so much like a nickname; more like a potentially life-threatening disease, and not much better than Rachel Rabies.

A lady I worked with in my early twenties always called me "Rach", and she insisted that this was a nickname.  I disagree.  It's just a shorter version of my name.  If a girl is named Jennifer, but we call her Jen, is it a nickname?  Or if a guy is named, oh I don't know, Andrew Tyler, and everyone calls him Tyler, does that count?  Not to me.

When I got married, I tried to take on my husband's nickname.  He played baseball in high school with several boys named Chris, so they each got nicknames to tell them apart.  His was Lippy.  So I thought, Great!  I'll be Mrs. Lippy.  It's cute, it rolls off the tongue, his-and-her nicknames!  But again, it didn't stick, because, again, you don't get to pick your own nickname.
 
The worst part of this whole thing is I am a terrific giver of nicknames.  I have successfully marked several people for life with unforgettable names, many of which are too cruel to post here.  (For those who have only known the adult me, I have to admit, yes, I was one of the cruel children we lament about.  I should probably try to find some of those people and apologize.  You never know who has your name on a list a la Billy Madison, am I right?)

What I'm saying, what I'm BEGGING, is for someone to give me a good nickname.  Please?  Make my lifelong wish come true!

My Fear

"So the good boys and girls
Take the so called right track
Faded white hats
Grabbing credits and maybe transfers

They read all the books but they can't find the answers."

I went to that cookie-cutter high school John Mayer sings about, the one that teaches the equation abc=xyz, with abc being Take these classes, Get straight A's, Graduate with honors, and xyz, you will Get into the top college of your choice, Graduate summa cum laude, and Get the best job ever.  And that's it, that's the meaning of life.  But I was lucky, because my parents didn't believe in conveyor belts, and they encouraged me to chart my own course.  They never shied away from being "weird" or different.  If I wanted to take a class that went away from the mold, they said do it.  If I liked reading science fiction novels instead of the "classics" required in AP English, they said drop the class.  If I wanted to wear clothes from Goodwill or my grandma's attic, they shrugged and went on with it.  They showed me how to figure out exactly who me was, with no right answers, no strict guidelines.

Well, I never lived the dream of the prom kings
And the drama queens
I'd like to think the best of me
Is still hiding up my sleeve

Sometimes when I mention something that my parents did really well, they'll scoff and say they weren't doing it on purpose.  They were flying by the seats of their respective pants, with no map to show them where to go.  So maybe it wasn't sheer bravery that caused them to let me be weird.  Maybe they were just clueless about what they were supposed to be doing.  But isn't that courage in and of itself?  To plow ahead, not looking to the side to see where the other parents are, if they are on the right course or headed for a cliff, to push me into the wide open world instead of on a narrow path to the Ivy League?

"I think what must have frightened my parents most 

of all [about my diagnosis] was the possibility that I would

not be able to lead the "normal" life they really wanted for me.

Like many parents, they equated normality with

being happy and productive."

Daniel Tammet, Born on a Blue Day

So why then, coming out of a home that placed so much importance on individualism, have I become that parent who is constantly checking what the others are doing, wondering if my kids are missing out, not measuring up?  Because I'm afraid.  I'm scared that my kids will show up at school reeking of different, and that will lead to bullying, low self-esteem, resentment toward me.  If they haven't had swim lessons by age 5, did they miss out on important childhood memories?  If I buy their shoes for $4 at a consignment sale, will other people be able to tell?  If our idea of family fun is eating popcorn and watching movies, if I buy them Skittles or let them drink Sprite, am I setting them up for obesity and isolation?  I just want to fit in, to blend in the crowd so my kids will be safe.  But that's not good parenting.  I know it isn't.  I was taught from such an early age to do what is best for me, to clear a path if none existed, to go where I need to go.  And why should that be any different for my kids?  I confessed this to my friend, and she laughed and said, "Oh, you SO don't fit in."  Wow, and that was when I was trying.  So I decided to shut out all the noise, all the websites and commercials and statuses that made me feel like I wasn't measuring up.  I called to mind John Mayer's young adult anthem, the song I identified with so well as a 19 year old nontraditional student.  Because my boys don't fit in boxes.  They are so much more than a list of grades or accomplishments or failures.  They are little people with passions and hopes and dreams.  And I want them to learn what I learned, how to create a life of one's own choices, how to arrive at one's own destination.

I wanna run through the halls of my high school
I wanna scream at the top of my lungs
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world
Just a lie you've got to rise above

On Hazing

I keep coming back to this memory, this moment of my life that had been pushed back to the far recesses.  Its a big storage space, the part of my brain holding onto past knowledge on the chance that I might need it again.  This one, its about 17 years old, but it resonates with me now like never before.

I am a high school freshman...well, I'm about to be.  In August, the band members load up instruments and a duffel bag of necessities and travel south to Camp Wakonda.  We sleep in cabins in the woods...My friends and I claim Cabin 5 as ours, and we return to it for the next two years.  It is our haven, a place where we are silly and weird and have teenage girl fights.  It is where we entertain with "Inspirational Romances" (wherein I read the "dirty" parts of a Harlequin romance novel in a silly voice and we giggle about things that we don't really understand), we tease and gossip.  Outside, there is a sort of bathroom.  There is a large "trough" on a cement slab where girls brush their teeth, wash their faces, shave their legs.  At any given time there are at least 15 of us engaged in one of these activities or another.  There are stalls with toilets and showers, and Tracy and I share Herbal Essence shampoo over the divider so that our hair smells pretty when we go up to the practice field.  The field, where we spend so much time in the sun that my knee pits gets sunburned.  We play "Across the Field" and "You Can Call Me Al" and "The Star-Spangled Banner".  We come back to this field when its dark, we lay on the grass with the boys who stay in the cabins on the other side of the woods, we look at the stars and imagine that we are quite grown-up out here, so far away from our parents.

And three times a day, we line up outside the Lodge, waiting to grab a seat in the dining hall.  Each table seats eight (and no more, we learned the hard way when we were seniors and there were nine at our table, and our band director made us clean every other table after the other kids were dismissed.  We blamed it on CJ at the time, because he was goofy and an easy target, but really, I wish I had just sat somewhere else instead of feeling like I had to be at a table with Melissa, Tracy, and Mike.  It was kind of miserable).  And when you are a freshman, you are assigned a day that you have to "hop" a table.  We eat family style, so the hopper is the person who brings the food to the table, gets refills, and then cleans at the end.  Its a rite of passage, we all had to do it, and fortunately, when you are a sophomore, if the class behind you is big enough, you don't have to do it again.  At each meal, a group of senior boys gather at a different table, and their goal is to not let the hopper sit down long enough to eat.  I remember this so well, the senior boys at my table, we were eating grilled cheese and tomato soup.  I don't think I got much to eat, although I think I was able to grab a few bites.  I will never forget placing the large bowl of soup on the table, it had to have at least a gallon in it, and Tad, the big sousaphone player, lifted the bowl to his lips and sucked it down.  The WHOLE thing.  In one long, unending gulp.  All in the name of hazing, or so I thought at the time.

It wasn't horrible, not like the boys who got duct-taped to their bunk beds a few years later.  It was understood that this made you part of the group, and they did move to a different table for the next meal, so it was only one missed meal for the week, and we were privileged kids whose parents sent candy and chips and jugs of water that we were supposed to leave with the directors so we didn't get raccoons in our cabins, but no one ever did.  As far as hazing goes, it was tolerable.  But now I am a mom of three growing boys, and every meal feels like this one day at Band Camp.  I am up making another sandwich, opening another cup of yogurt, slicing another apple.  I am refilling drinks that are spilled or gulped, either way empty in seconds.  It makes me wonder how much those boys were trying to harass freshmen or if they were really that hungry.  I guess when the yelled "HOP HOP HOP" as you walked up to the counter to get more food, and only stopped when you actually jumped, and how they took it a little easier on you if you were a good sport...that part wasn't necessary.  But after marching around the field all day, then swimming in the lake during our free period, maybe they were just that hungry.  Hungry enough to drink a tureen of soup.