I liked everything. Well, I don't know if I liked everything, but I never gave up on any of them. I finished every play I started. Some people do this with books, and maybe I was like that then, but today I'm quick to abandon anything that doesn't pull me in. In my youth, however, I seemed to realize that there was a lot I didn't know, a lot I needed to learn.
These years included my Junior and Senior years of high school. There I was, failing every subject and feeling like a total loss in school—and sometimes at home—and in my room my nose would be buried in Long Day's Journey into Night or Waiting for Godot.
Much later I was reading Camus' Caligula on the subway during my morning commute to work when the garlic-reeking lunatic ripped the pearls off my neck.
Wait what?
ReplyDeleteAll of this. The pearls. The failing every class. I'm just so stunned!
Holy shit, I don't remember that story at all... I must have read it, although weirdly, my comment was about Sabine's photo. Anyways, what a tale! Yay to all the white/black/whatever colour knights in shining armour.
ReplyDeleteI got a little misty-eyed reading again this morning.
DeleteThe article, that is. Not your comment. ;-)
DeleteFailing every class? Wow. That sounds so not like you.
ReplyDeleteIt was a complicated mess. I'll see if I can condense it. School was always easy for me. Sailed through every grade. Sent to boarding school after my mom died; came home two years later when my dad remarried. I was happy to have a mother, but it didn't work out for a long time. Public high school so different from convent boarding. Took some tests my sophomore year, and they got excited about my high IQ and what they said was the highest aptitude for math in NYC. About a month into my junior year they moved me into advanced placement classes. I was lost. Sailing through school had taught me no study habits. Home life was upsetting much of the time. Ditto school. Plus I discovered boys. Told to "buckle down," but I had no idea how. Found it easier to be rebellious with my teachers and a comedian with my classmates. That about sums it up.
DeleteAnd all of that is a very reasonable explanation. I was a great student until they decided that being tracked high meant being tracked high in all subjects, after which I began failing Algebra II, which would have been completely avoidable if they had allowed me to repeat Algebra I in 9th grade instead of taking II. Then I was tracked high in geometry...what a mess. Just cuz you're above average in one thing doesn't mean you're above average in everything. But I digress.
DeleteI love this explanation. And I 100% agree that sailing through teaches us no study habits. No wonder that you were struggling. But I love the image of you sitting at home reading Waiting for Godot.
DeleteYou have the best stories, and tell them brilliantly.
ReplyDeleteYou really are complicated.
ReplyDeleteI missed that pearl story. It's fabulous. I still think you should write the screenplay of your life.
ReplyDelete