17

Just yesterday, I was reminded of me.  At 17.  In the last year or so, I can say that she smiles at me.  That I have earned her pride.  She breezes through campus writing poetry and fighting against hunger in Africa.  She collected artists while never getting anything more than the ability to draw in a very linear and logical manner.  A stick figure or a house with windows and doors and a chimney with smoke.  Images etched in black and white,too simplistic for even a smattering of color.

And she has found her smile, her peace, her tribe at Arkansas Governor's School.  She has found this collection of people who mutter of Humpty Dumpty being pushed as she breezes by in comfort.  There is no corner or room that frightens her or puts her ill at ease.  And she breathes as she breezes.

I smile as I think of this.  It seems so simple and easy and yet I think of everyone I know today and the age I am and the heat that I feel when I step outside in the morning.  Is that humidity?  Or is that being older and tired?  The years of children, jobs, doctor's appointments, loads of laundry, dinners you need to eat but don't want to cook, balancing a checkbook.  It's oppressive.

And I remember that once she breathed.  She sat still long enough for a tall, thin, pasty white boy to "tag" her entire arm. He knew rap.  She knew Depeche Mode. I can't remember one conversation in depth or substance but they had a language of abbreviations that kicked texting ass.  IKR?  It started as ILY.  But they once wrote a note to one another that had 46 abbreviations and they knew what they meant.  They breathed their thoughts. 

She knew she was changed.  She knew that  she'd smart, political and breezy.  She'd collect more artists and she'd be their linear groupie anchor. 

I regret very little in life.  Everything shapes, pinches and molds us into the people we become.  I have moments that I wish I could change or remember.  I'd change my car wreck and I'd change the days I left Hendrix.  Both of them.  The last day of Governor's School, she was bound and determined to bind herself to a tree.  But she walked away.   The wind stopped.  Like the lore of spirits, ghosts and fairy-tales.  The whisperings that we are all born able to communicate across those mystic channels until we age and those channels close.

Governor's School shaped her- her second meeting of Bill Clinton, his signature on the name tag she wore all summer long.  Just another piece of paper she collected.  Worn with pride and admiration.  His signature turned in towards her heart.

She walked away.

Yesterday, I met  a guy from Fort Smith and I was reminded of the John Y.  She whispered a phone number and an address still tucked away after 31 years.  But more, she waved at me from a corner of my heart buried underneath loads of laundry and parent teach conferences. And I caught my breath.