Resume -- Dorothy Parker and an Eleven Year-Old
October 12, 2008
I was eleven. Built more like a slim young boy with short, wavy brown hair, than a sixth-grade girl with the shoulder-length flowing hair I would have preferred. The next year, I would be cast as Tiny Tim in our school play. So you have the picture.
We were in groups of five, the goal, to be an anchor team. Women didn't have roles like that in those days, so I don't recall aspiring to what I would become. But, I do recall that I was charged with reading a poem -- the close of the "news" program. It was a show-stopper.
This comes to mind, because I opened the OXFORD DICTIONARY OF MODERN QUOTATIONS at random to this very poem.
It was written by Dorothy Parker. I didn't know how to pronounce the title Resume back then, but I fully felt the words I was reading:
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
I finished the poem, and looked up. There was dead silence in the classroom. Mr. D cleared his throat, and asked me the title of the poem. I fumbled.
I looked at him expectantly.
I was eleven years old, for heaven's sake, and trapped in a violent home life. At the time, my mother was just attempting the slow suicide -- with the bottle -- only beginning to dabble in razors and pills. I completely identified with Dorothy Parker's poem. You might as well live.
What baffles me then as now, why didn't Mr. D persist until he understood why I chose that poem? Why didn't he rescue that little girl?
Because, for reasons I was too young to know, my life was designed this way. It has been a dramatically amazing path -- surviving, seeing angels, healing, interviewing compassionate teachers along the way, growing my hair to my shoulders and tinting it auburn, thriving, falling in love with a world without limits, gratitude.
You might as well live.
I was eleven. Built more like a slim young boy with short, wavy brown hair, than a sixth-grade girl with the shoulder-length flowing hair I would have preferred. The next year, I would be cast as Tiny Tim in our school play. So you have the picture.
We were in groups of five, the goal, to be an anchor team. Women didn't have roles like that in those days, so I don't recall aspiring to what I would become. But, I do recall that I was charged with reading a poem -- the close of the "news" program. It was a show-stopper.
This comes to mind, because I opened the OXFORD DICTIONARY OF MODERN QUOTATIONS at random to this very poem.
It was written by Dorothy Parker. I didn't know how to pronounce the title Resume back then, but I fully felt the words I was reading:
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
I finished the poem, and looked up. There was dead silence in the classroom. Mr. D cleared his throat, and asked me the title of the poem. I fumbled.
I looked at him expectantly.
I was eleven years old, for heaven's sake, and trapped in a violent home life. At the time, my mother was just attempting the slow suicide -- with the bottle -- only beginning to dabble in razors and pills. I completely identified with Dorothy Parker's poem. You might as well live.
What baffles me then as now, why didn't Mr. D persist until he understood why I chose that poem? Why didn't he rescue that little girl?
Because, for reasons I was too young to know, my life was designed this way. It has been a dramatically amazing path -- surviving, seeing angels, healing, interviewing compassionate teachers along the way, growing my hair to my shoulders and tinting it auburn, thriving, falling in love with a world without limits, gratitude.
You might as well live.
Labels: Dorothy Parker poem Resume, gratitude, healing, poetry, seeing angels., teacher, transcending the trauma
posted by Diana Page Jordan @ 10:36 PM
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