On my day as an author
I don't remember much about this day: a public school, a long line of students getting Tomie dePaola's autograph, a small group activity with other students, and standing at the back of Mrs. Kurtz' first grade classroom dressed not in the school uniform attire. The impressions returned to me recently when I came across Barbara Elleman's The Worlds of Tomie dePaola at the Iowa City Public Library, and Strega Nona with her bulbous nose and equally bulbous chin did what recollection does: three clear images brought a thousand others, Think of fishing for one Christmas ornament hook and bringing out a tangled mess of hooks instead.
For that one day, I was recognized as an author.
The fact that it was a public school is based purely on intuition. The place did not feel like my school, which was private. I realize how condescending that statement sounds, but it's not coming from an “I’m better than them” perspective. It’s actually quite the opposite. My lifelong tendency is to fit in with whatever environment I find myself, which more often feels like a hindrance. I know shame intimately. Asking questions like “Is this space healthy? Does it promote justice? What are its values?” is a learned behavior. My seven-year-old self was several decades away from doing anything other than noticing an "I'm out of place" feeling and trying to fit in as best I could. Re-mapping my neuro-pathways is not easy. To say that "the place did not feel like my school" means I recognized a substantial part of what I understood of myself differed from the other attendees, and being different meant I felt inferior.
The feeling has substance. I to this day have no idea how I came to be chosen. Did Mrs. Kurtz recommended me? Did I win some sort of class competition that sent me on to meet Mr. dePaola? What I do remember is having made a book about Jesus' walking on the water and taking it along with me to this event. The book was created with either blank paper or those first grade sheets having a blank space for a picture at the top and lines for words on the bottom. I can't vividly see the words. One frame of it remains: a Crayola washable marker sketch of a boat that's cresting a wave, its rigging blown about, its passengers—Jesus’ disciples—petrified. The perspective is quite advanced, but that's because I was redrawing portions of an actual children's book. No one told me not to or explained plagiarism. No one from my school prepped me for what I was to encounter at the school-that’s-not-my-school. So, when I arrived at the school-that’s-not-my-school and saw a girl's book with a black and white checkered hard cover and an original story about—well, what it was about isn't coming to mind except that it was her story with her characters and looked like an actual book—I felt misplaced. What I brought was not as much mine as hers was hers.
I went where I was directed, stood where I was supposed to, talked when I was allowed because rule-following is the quickest means to appearing like you belong. No one questions whether you belong if you're following the rules. Jump in line, stay in line, point your nose in the same direction as everyone else and others will question whether they belong, not you. The insecurity is in our DNA. I’ve always admired those rare individuals who find conforming to other people's expectations un-dignified. Shameful. I’m forty-two, and the urge to please—to find my self-worthy in others’ validations—is now something I’m attempting to separate from my own sense of validation. Nonconformity is a conscious decision..
A second image I had was of some indoor performance space. Up until this point dePaola is the poltergeist of the party. Haven’t heard him. Haven’t seen him. Until now. He’s sitting far away on a chair. Whether he's on a stage or not, I cannot tell. A line of fellow writers and teachers are smiling, turning about, talking while they wait their turn with the famous author, to get their book they bought signed. It stretches along the front—it must be a theater—and up the side of the auditorium on the right. I don't remember the trip down the steps to the front of the auditorium to see him. Just the distant, awkward angle of being halfway up, like I'm suspended in space. An ethereal perspective from which he has no face. And then I'm suddenly in front of him, his face a big smudge except for eyes that have seen a thousand children today, signed a thousand copies of his books, and asked a thousand questions. Do I have a book? Yes. Here it is. My name is Michael. Yes, I have a brother. I really like your drawings. Why do you put a heart in all your drawings? And then I'm off, and he is gone, and now he's dead. We could have been such great friends.
I remember nothing more of the school-that’s-not-my-school.
My final image of my day as a real, live writer is back in Mrs. Kurtz' classroom. It's here that I feel like the event happened in the spring, but I have no evidence. Seasons are silly in Florida: sweltering turns to warm and then back to sweltering. An occasional cool day happens in January or February, which is what I think I’m experiencing on this day. I'm wearing a sweater. Everyone else is in uniform. I'm out of place, but this time I’m special. I'm smiling. They're working until I enter and stand not at my desk but at the back of the room. I feel like the final bell is about to ring. No, I wasn't absent today; I was on a field trip with kids from other classes to see Tomie dePaola. He's a writer. The author of Strega Nona that Mrs. Kurtz often reads to us. Did I meet him? Of course, I met him. He's really nice. Here—I got his autograph.
