What if I didn't know you?
Twelve years ago, I started my sophomore year at Banneker, a year behind everyone else's established friendships, dramas, cliques. Small as the school is, it was possible to not know a soul.
Somehow I got doped into being the Student Government Association rep for our homeroom. Maybe I volunteered, maybe cause I read in Seventeen that's how you make friends at a new school. The meetings were predictably boring, but I have to say true to the mag's advice, I walked out with a friend. The president fo the SGA, writer for the school newspaper, shiny face on BET's Teen Summit, a senior. For the first couple of weeks at school, she was the only person to say hi in the halls, that friendly face that gave me reason to skulk from class to class. June came and, she flashed that "Future Communications Major" bright smile and waved a ticket. "Come to graduation!" She sped off to college, I lumbered through junior and senior years...you know, we lost touch.
Until, we did high school together again, this time as teachers. Wow, we were teachers and did it up. Survived 9/11 together, wild crack-addicted children who wouldn't sit down, brilliant children we were afraid we couldn't teach. Ate entirely too many wings at Hooters. Suffered delapidated relationships, and baskd in romantic redemption. Planned the first Spring Ball, that still reigns as The Most Elegantly Scandalous Ever. Came to school just to laugh together and at each other. Honestly, there are few people who make better jokes about their own knock-knees and pidgeon toes. Again, after a graduation, we left. Me for graduate school, her for family. See you on the flip side!
Well. Unexpectedly, the flip side is the same Chocolate City, burnt and burnished. Our road back is a little tear stained, a little dusty and not quite as glorious as our departure. Isn't that the stuff good books are made of? Neither sophomores or seniors in the tangled safety net of high school, and only one of us at the helm of a classroom...our DC is something new. Shiny, expensive, cops write tickets for hawk-spitting out the driver's side window. Ethnically diverse (More than English, Ebonics, or Spanish Overheard in DC), pocked with Starbucks, boutique shoe stores lining the pavement with jimmy choos instead of New Balance, DC is vying for "Hippest City in the UpSouth," where everybody's from Someplace Else.
And, for this Northwest chick,
The hallway is a lot longer, like Pennsylvania Avenue long. Thankfully, mercifully, at the end of it, she has the same laugh, infectious humor and optimism, passion and drive. "Yes, I'm like this all the time!" Her new apartment is a haven for us wanna be writers, certified dreamers. The lasagna she whipped up on the formica fold-down table is hot and meaty, and there's a drawer that, when opened, rewards at least ten classic chick-flicks for your troubles. Would I be laughing this hard if I didn't know you? Sanctuary in this unfamiliar town. Madame President, what we gonna do?
Somehow I got doped into being the Student Government Association rep for our homeroom. Maybe I volunteered, maybe cause I read in Seventeen that's how you make friends at a new school. The meetings were predictably boring, but I have to say true to the mag's advice, I walked out with a friend. The president fo the SGA, writer for the school newspaper, shiny face on BET's Teen Summit, a senior. For the first couple of weeks at school, she was the only person to say hi in the halls, that friendly face that gave me reason to skulk from class to class. June came and, she flashed that "Future Communications Major" bright smile and waved a ticket. "Come to graduation!" She sped off to college, I lumbered through junior and senior years...you know, we lost touch.
Until, we did high school together again, this time as teachers. Wow, we were teachers and did it up. Survived 9/11 together, wild crack-addicted children who wouldn't sit down, brilliant children we were afraid we couldn't teach. Ate entirely too many wings at Hooters. Suffered delapidated relationships, and baskd in romantic redemption. Planned the first Spring Ball, that still reigns as The Most Elegantly Scandalous Ever. Came to school just to laugh together and at each other. Honestly, there are few people who make better jokes about their own knock-knees and pidgeon toes. Again, after a graduation, we left. Me for graduate school, her for family. See you on the flip side!
Well. Unexpectedly, the flip side is the same Chocolate City, burnt and burnished. Our road back is a little tear stained, a little dusty and not quite as glorious as our departure. Isn't that the stuff good books are made of? Neither sophomores or seniors in the tangled safety net of high school, and only one of us at the helm of a classroom...our DC is something new. Shiny, expensive, cops write tickets for hawk-spitting out the driver's side window. Ethnically diverse (More than English, Ebonics, or Spanish Overheard in DC), pocked with Starbucks, boutique shoe stores lining the pavement with jimmy choos instead of New Balance, DC is vying for "Hippest City in the UpSouth," where everybody's from Someplace Else.
And, for this Northwest chick,
The hallway is a lot longer, like Pennsylvania Avenue long. Thankfully, mercifully, at the end of it, she has the same laugh, infectious humor and optimism, passion and drive. "Yes, I'm like this all the time!" Her new apartment is a haven for us wanna be writers, certified dreamers. The lasagna she whipped up on the formica fold-down table is hot and meaty, and there's a drawer that, when opened, rewards at least ten classic chick-flicks for your troubles. Would I be laughing this hard if I didn't know you? Sanctuary in this unfamiliar town. Madame President, what we gonna do?
posted by Rhonda Henderson at 5:21 PM
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