Making Music

My daughter is in the fifth grade. That goes a long way in explaining the silence from this blog these past several months. I didn’t know! Apparently, fifth grade is a bear to teach, with its own weathers. Sweet girls turn mean and boys get into fist fights. I’ve been told that the light at the end of the tunnel is sixth grade. That is not comforting news.

 A new rule in our house is that everybody is dressed by noon. Despair comes first to those still in their pajamas. Despair looks like moping, whining and crying, I’ve nothing to look forward to! As if all of life was a slide towards the grave. My answer: Get your ass out of bed. Wash and dress. Get outside. Even if it’s ten minutes in the dingy neighborhood on a cold day, moving through the air does something. Trust me on this.

A new girl moved to our school. She’s one of those girls that bounds from one side of the room to the other. She’s loud. When asked “What’re you doing?” She’ll reply without hesitation, “Drawing, Stupid.”  When told, “Don’t call me that,” she says, “What do you want me to call you, Dummy?” I appreciate this kind of humor. I really do. I also understand that an appreciation for it is hard to muster when you’re ten. The quick grin and the Just  kiddin‘! are simply confusing.

Horrible news: this girl has decided that my kid’s best friend is now hers. Ouch.

When Former Best Friend arrives in the a.m.,  New Girl will bound across the play yard squealing her name, arms open wide for a big ol’ hug. This is before the bell. Former Best Friend, though barely awake, kind of likes all the enthusiasm. How could one not?  My daughter is not a bounder. Doesn’t shout greetings, not even to me. You can count on her for love-soaked smiles, and big, meaningful squeezes, but she’s not going to run across the playground with her arms wide open.

This situation has caused trauma. At first she fought back, buying—with her own money—one of those Best/Friends necklaces; each friend wears one half. I watched her give this to her Former Best Friend, who put it in her pocket and walked away. They both knew, I think, that it was a bribe. Didn’t work. Later in the day, my daughter sidled up to Former Best friend, and asked, “So do you still like New Girl?” Yes she said to my daughter. Then added: And that’s okay!

Ouch.

I hope you’re squirming. I am. I hate this stuff, with all my soul. Of course this is because I went through it.  The new girl came in  fifth grade, brought an audible hush to the classroom. Tight pants and breasts. Shocking. Pretty brown eyes and an athleticism like none of us goons had seen before. The boys were besotted. These were the days when the girls put long-handled combs in their back pockets and wagged their asses around so the boys would grab the handle and run away. I got a comb and put it my back pocket and no one really cared. I wasn’t good at ass wagging.  Part of me found all of this behavior idiotic. I so wish I could say that  I took the comb and threw it in a dumpster and never looked back!  It’s closer to the truth to say that I practiced wagging my ass in front of the full length mirror. To no avail.

Right on target, everyone in my daughter’s fifth grade class is suddenly lovesick. Each girl has her crush; everybody’s bragging about who said what to her, who pulled her hair, who sat by her in music. This is also a source of trauma. I tried to be subtle when I said, “Well, a person could be upset about all this because no one is following her around. It could be simple jealousy.” This was met with a calm, “Uh, no.” Shockingly, she really does believe that her old friends are being ridiculous. Temporarily insane. Perhaps this is the last flicker of innocence before the real shit hits the fan. Or it could be that she knows her own mind.

The new girl finally came between my best friend and me in sixth grade. She started hanging out with New Girl in band and after school. New Girl was no longer really new, but still wildly advanced in the areas that mattered. My best friend would go weeks without calling me, when we used to talk every day after school.  I fought back by trying to hang out with New Girl in band, too. I’d sit with her at lunch. But I wasn’t terribly comfortable going over to her house, or having her to mine. I don’t recall that ever happening. I assumed Former Best Friend was having her over, and going over there. I stewed on this. Summer came and we did not speak. Not once. She knew my little brother better than I did. My dad once tickled her under the ribs from behind, thinking she was me. Three whole months and not one word. I saw her at the ball park and walked away from her. It was over. My first taste of heartbreak.

School started again. We agreed to meet in Washington park and hash it out. I admitted I was jealous over New Girl. She told me she heard I had said her new haircut looked dumb. I had. We both admitted how much we missed each other. We agreed to be best friends again; confessed our crushes, admitted to wretched humiliations and scandalous desires.

But it was never the same after that summer. We were so very different. This could no longer be denied. Because I am a twin, difference has always held extra weight for me. Everyday, I woke up to a mirror image of myself, right across the room. And that was what I wanted in a best friend: a double who acted just like me, liked what I liked and would never leave me, not for any boy, ever. I think most girls, starting in Kindergarten, want this in a best friend. A double.

This idea is a fantasy. Disappointment waiting to happen. Take it from me, an authority on genetic doubles: you are not going to meet yourself in another body. I’d argue that this isn’t even a compelling  idea. We need people to be different from us, to balance us out. Extroverts need introverts to center them. Loudmouths need whisperers. People are like piano keys; we all sound slightly different. This is good. This is how we make music.

So, even as I writhe inside, hearing how Former Best Friend no longer chooses my daughter as partner in gym activities, and I hate hearing her  moon around with big sighs, saying “I wish I had a best friend,” I also think, Really?

Maybe fifth grade is about learning that you’re going to be okay, even without a double. Ten years old is when it begins, this long series of lessons that finally amount to knowing your own mind. My firmest hope is that my daughter learns this before I did. Way before.

My strategy for helping this along was not to sign up for private school, travel to Italy, or get a counselor. Options for some, no doubt. What we did was far simpler: we got her ears pierced.

She chose studs of tiny green, jewels that winked in the sunlight. Wow. A spot of bling on either side of the face can do wonders for a girl’s attitude. My mother has always loved this optimistic advice: A girl can always use a new pair of earrings. Amen!

Even better was the experience itself. The piercer was in her early twenties, with long white hair, intricately held in place by clips and hair spray. She spoke rapidly, with an almost imperceptible speech impediment, explaining that her own multiple piercings were a result of new employees needing practice. We were  mesmerized by her animation, her gorgeous mouth, that slight impediment as she delivered the rehearsed care-of-ears speech. It was a performance, we discussed later. This was just after Halloween and we marveled that for this woman, like lots of women, every day involves getting into costume. How unthinkable! How mysterious! How courageous-—and how very different!