Still Life
Growing up With Death
A Visual Memoir
There are four things I remember about third grade; my favorite outfit; Lisa K.; music tryouts; and when the voices first came.
My favorite pants in third grade was a pair of French jeans. I’m not sure what made these jeans French. The jeans had zippers going down the front side of the legs, between the hip and the center of the waist. The jeans also had the ubiquitous 1970’s bell bottom leg. What made this an outfit was that I would always pair the jeans with my gauzy peasant blouse. We had a washer and dryer in the house, and I would just wash the outfit over and over. I can still see myself, watching those items spin around the dryer, humming along to the dryer’s vibration. I would pull the clothes out, push it up to my nose and breathe in this heady scent of that outfit. The heat from the dryer, the smell of the soapy detergent was intoxicating. I must have worn that outfit three times a week. I’m sure, if I could squeeze into that outfit today, I would wear it just as often.
In 1973 one of the most popular girl’s names was Lisa, and my third-grade class was no exception. The only Lisa I was friendly with was Lisa S. First she had the perfect blond hair. She wore it straight with a middle part like Marsha Brady. Lisa S. had blue eyes and heart-shaped lips. She played dodge ball like a boy. When she got hit with the ball she would yell, “didn’t hurt!” but even I could see the red welt appear on her arm. I don’t know how she didn’t cry.
Third grade was the grade in which you selected a musical instrument to play for the remainder of your years in elementary school. It was a big deal and a big day. We were all excited by the prospect of our musical instrument. Each of us knew what we wanted to play. All the girls wanted to play the flute. The flute was a magical instrument. It was slim and slight and whistled like tinny bells on a tree. It was somehow reminiscent of angels, even though I had never seen or heard an angel; I assumed an angle would float alongside the musical notes of a flute. There I was flanked by Lisas, all trying to look cool peering into the second-grade classes, knowing we were the older students, waiting for the offerings only bequeathed to third graders.
The music teacher, Mr. G. I do not remember. The only aspect of him was the sound of his voice and the words that he said. Adults were terrifying to me; most of the time, when in proximately to adults, my head lowered, my ears were on fire, just listening. Mr. G. had a pocket office, just enough for a small desk, chair, music stand and a stool. This pocket office was close to the auditorium where once we were situated with our instruments, we would rehearse and play. One by one the music teacher, Mr. G called each student into his office.
“And what would you like to try out?”
Every girl that went in the front pocket office out the other side with a flute. It was a magical door. When each girl exited, they immediate skipped over to join the other “flute girls” in a gaggle of new flutist exhilaration. I wanted to belong to a group. I wanted to be liked and be alike. All the Jennifers, Lindas, Susans, Lisas, and Michele's, had received their flutes.
I was waiting to be called, leaning against the teal-colored concrete hallway wall, silently holding in my excitement. I could feel my heart palpitating under my smiley face tee shirt. It was the first time I can remember being so particular about something. Soon I would be part of a group. I would fit in and be the same as all the other girls. I imagined we would all play the flute, become best friends, go to the same college, dorm together and be each other’s bridesmaids at our respective weddings.
“Next…” in a fuzziness, I remember hearing, “Leslie what would you like to try out?” “Lindsey,” I whispered. “Oh, sorry, Lindsey.”
Mr. G said looking down at the roster page. “What would you like to play?” Every teacher had a problem with remembering my name. Lindsey, as you can imagine was not a popular name. My mother let her mother, my grandmother Irene name me. She decided on the initial L to honor her late mother, Lillian and she was hell-bent on her children and grandchildren having theatrical names.
The teachers, however, did not care about theatrical names, either they didn’t know it, or they called me something close to it, Leslie, Linda, Lisa, Lynn and sometimes they did something far worse.
“I want to play the flute!” the words tumbled out of me before he finished the question. He handed me a cold metal flute.
Immediately I sensed that I had something extraordinary in my hand.
“Okay, this is the mouthpiece,” he said while pointing to the open hole of the flute.
“Put this part against your bottom lip and purse your lip like so,” he moved his mouth and lips in a fish like expression. I was tentative, I wanted to be perfect, but my excitement made my breathing quicken. I started. He instructed:
“Blow through your mouth.”
I did. Nothing, nothing came out of my mouth, no sound, no rush of air, and no whistle.
“Again,”
This time he pushed the mouthpiece closer to my lip, and it felt hard and unbearable. Again, I struggled air into my mouth, and to my surprise, I squeezed out a slight whistle.
“Again,”
I was growing tired of breathing and blowing, I started to feel light-headed, but I did it again; nothing, no sound. Mr. G scribbled something in a green notebook.
I held the flute, my precious sweet flute, tightly in my right hand, leaning it against my hip, as it was always a part of me. I was waiting to be presented with the flute’s little case, with its small handle.
“Lindsey, um, ha, um, you do not have flute lips.”
I was stunned. The room was spinning and darkening; my legs felt rubbery as if I was couldn’t stand upright. Flute lips? Was there such a thing as flute lips? Why didn’t I have flute lips? How come the other girls have flute lips? I heard a thousand things at once. What will my friends think? My mind was coated with chaos.
“What does that mean?” I asked while fingering my lip. “It means that the flute is not for you.”
Immediately, my bottom lip began to quiver, and the cloudy vision that accompanies the onset of tears arrived in both eyes. I didn’t want to cry, I thought of Lisa K., she wouldn’t complain. But then again she was born with flute lips. He took the flute from my hand. I watched the flute leave my side; I could see my wet hand print evaporating on the flute’s narrow body, as if the whole thing, the flute, the idea of me playing the flute was all an apparition.
Mr. G. stood up from his wooden swivel stool, still spinning, and walked over to a closet. He lifted out a hideous covered object. It was huge and covered with a black vinyl bag, which was so dusty; he blew on the bag to clear some of the dust, then he unzipped the bag. Like breach birth, he pulled out a brown colored instrument that reminded me of a violin only this was a giant one.
“Lindsey, this is a cello.” Then to make matters worse, he handed me more things; a bow with little hairs springing out of the end and a tiny cube of resin. He took the cello and placed it between his thighs, squeezing his legs around it, explaining the position of playing. He handed everything back to me. The cello was at least a foot bigger than I was, it might as well have been a recliner.
The cello consumed me. The teacher seemed pleased with himself, content with imposing this sentence on me. And then I heard, not me, not him, but a voice. This was the first time I heard it. This was the voice that would stay with me for the rest of my life:
“You the one with the stupid name, the boy-girl, the one with the ridiculous pixie haircut, the one with the dead mother, here’s your monster, you will always be different, best you get used to it now.”
Mr. G. shepherded me out into the hallway. All the while, I was screaming inside, ‘this is wrong, this is a mistake, I’m supposed to play the flute. Using my palm before anyone could see I wiped away any evidence of tears. I quickly covered the monster up making sure I tucked the bow into the bag.
I stood there, in the hallway that was painted that horrible hospital teal color, while the flute girls echoed in my ear.
