recess

the word recess always reminds me of elementary school: crisp autumn races around the cement playground, skimming across the monkey bars and swinging wildly, trying to see how high i could get, just flinging myself back and forth on steel chain and a slice of rubber.

recess also reminds me of holes in the wall--a recessed area, for example. when i was young i always wanted to find places to hide, always dreamed of secret passages and hidey holes, like a priest's hole: a spot designated for just little old me to shrug into, and hide from the world.

for the most part i remember this time with happy memories. i was a happy kid, for the most part, but that may have been because i was living about 85% of the time in my imagination.

like a recess in my brain, where i was permanently at recess.

does that make sense?

when i was in third grade my teacher was mr. zagorski. very nice guy--tall, with a good-sized belly, glasses, dark receding hair and a bushy mustasche. we read "call of the wild" by jack london, out of a big book with pictures. my parents went in for their annual conferences and he shared that if i could just pull myself out of my imagination, and apply myself, i could be a very good student.

i now wonder if that's a byproduct of this add, that the dreamer in me is just more focused than the reality-creator will ever be.

right now i'm on vacation--another kind of recess. a recess from work, where i spend weeks holed up in my fuzzy gray cube. i've got lots of plans, probably too many, and i'll probably accomplish only a fraction of what i feel i should be able to.

***

when we read jack london's shortened version of "call of the wild" i took that name and went to the library. i found the real book, and devoured it. i don't to toot my own horn, but by the time i was in fifth grade, i was reading james michener. the reality of that book scared me, probably more than any scary movie could--that people could have things like leprosy, something i'd never heard of.

i think that is when i started to become an anxious person. i've always been afraid of the dark--where i think the well of imagination is disguised, bushes piled up in front of an endless cave. the monster under the bed changed when i started reading things that were probably out of my league, morphed from a dark, toothy blob into germs and the unknown world outside my house.

i started doing things like checking to make sure doors were locked, and only drinking out the family water bottle in the car if i could drink first. when i was thirteen my parents went bowling one night and came home to find me sobbing, sure that i had AIDs. my mom sat me down and said: "kim, are you having unprotected sex? what about using dirty needles?"

when i look back i can see the silliness of it, the ridiculousness of my brain. the structure of school i always felt held me back, when in truth, it kept me in bounds...of some kind.

now that i'm without structure--ie, no work deadlines, nothing to keep me on the tracks--i'm scattered and lost. too many bright and shiny objects on which to focus.

too many projects, too many thoughts.

***

so maybe i'll regress just a little and go find a playground, and sit on the swings for a while. provided there aren't any kids around. (;