Our leader, Mrs. Beasley, had jack-o’-lantern teeth and took in stray cats, both of which struck me as earthy and immaterial. She also wore a kerchief that tapered to a point at the nape of her neck; to me, the ultimate qualification for being leader of the Scouts.
“For the next month,” she said, “I want you to write in it every day.”
I went home eager to get started. I would approach the diary like any other written school assignment—book report, letter to my Danish pen pal—adapting my tone to suit the form. In a marbled copy book, I wrote unabashed passages about staring in my bedroom mirror willing my chest to grow, wondering when I would get my period, and hoping a boy would kiss me, preferably A. J. Giglio. It was mostly truth, with a notch of exaggeration. Though I might not ordinarily have written about bras and periods, this was an assignment, and these were the kinds of details I thought a diary should contain. I was simultaneously acutely aware of writing for an audience and unaware of that audience except in the most abstract sense. It didn’t once occur to me to censor myself. Writing was the one thing that made me feel completely safe.
We turned in the diaries, and the following week, after dragging our chairs into a circle, Mrs. Beasley announced: “I have something I want you all to hear.” Like a jack-o’-lantern’s, her smile could swing from goofy to frightening in seconds. “This,” she said, and to my horror, my diary emerged from her bag, “is what I’m looking for,” and then she began reading from it out loud. She didn’t name the author, but it was obvious who’d written it. I felt my face redden as my mournful ruminations about bras and boys were unleashed in the warm, stagnant cafeteria air. Worse, they were unleashed in the voice of Mrs. Beasley, who was reading them with extra poignancy and emphasis, leaning on particularly embarrassing passages as if to say: These are the kinds of private thoughts you should all be writing.
I knew, even through the fog of my humiliation, that Mrs. Beasley wasn’t mean-spirited, just misdirected. She was hoping the other girls would be inspired to the same level of excruciating intimacy, that my secrets would be the key to unlocking all of their hidden selves. It even occurred to me, sitting there, that maybe I was being selfish for feeling upset, that this kind of sharing was what being a true Scout was all about. But the longer I listened, the more her praise made me feel paralyzed, exposed, the written equivalent of dancing in front of the fish tank. The other girls shifted and giggled, no doubt relieved they’d had the good sense to keep their secrets to themselves.
More than twenty years later, as I gaze around the attic at the still-unopened bags and boxes, I know the Girl Scout diary isn’t among them. That afternoon, after the meeting, I went home and threw it in the trash—not just the kitchen garbage but the metal can outside. If I destroyed it, it never happened. If I didn’t talk about it, it didn’t exist.
The year I turned eleven, Your Child At ended. I was about a week into my eleventh year when, still having heard no report, I asked Mom if she’d read the next installment. It was nighttime and I was standing in her bedroom doorway, the same spot I’d stood one year earlier, but now my bedtime was a half hour later, my nightgown replaced by my dad’s old oversized St. Joe’s T-shirt. When Mom broke the news that there was no Your Child At Eleven, I felt a mild panic. Though I’d never had any delusions about eleven being as great as ten, it hadn’t occurred to me that I might have no information to go on. Maybe this meant I wasn’t a child anymore; after ten, life gets too confusing for even the author to explain.
From what I knew so far of eleven, this seemed possible. I was already recalling the previous year like some distant golden age. Not only had ten ended, so had fifth grade and Glenside Elementary. We were moving on to the far more complex playing field of Elkins Park Middle, the confluence of four different elementary schools, buses, locker combinations, changing classes, algebra, foreign languages. Our little universe, in which Joey Healey was heroking, would soon dissolve into unfamiliar faces, into designer labels, and boys and girls who clung to each other’s hands and back pockets in the halls.
Here I would be confronted with things I couldn’t have predicted, revealed at moments I couldn’t have foreseen. Like the morning I saw no less than fifteen hickeys covering the neck and chest of Lisa Furst when changing in the locker room before gym. Like the Saturday my mom and I were shopping at Gimbels and I looked up to see Mrs. Wilson, my fearsome Home Ec teacher, in whose class I had labored anxiously over one misshapen lightbulb pillow for weeks, standing behind the register. We didn’t acknowledge each other. Her name tag said Debbie.
In retrospect, it seems an act of providence—or maybe perceptiveness on the part of a knowing aunt or family friend—that I was given The Judy Blume Diary that year.
“This is a different kind of diary,” Judy Blume wrote in her introduction, and I saw instantly that this was true. Instead of feeling covert, the diary had an aura of openness. It was bigger than a paperback and the cover was rainbow striped, like my favorite shirt. The Place to Put Your Own Feelings, it said—not just A Place but The Place, like some formal admittance into adolescence. It was spiral-bound, keyless; to write in it, I realized, would require a degree of trust.
“Sometimes,” Judy Blume wrote, “just writing down your feelings makes them easier to understand.” The presence of her voice inside the diary felt comforting, as did the chorus of quotes from her characters filling the margins at the bottoms of the pages: Karen, Deenie, Sheila, Sally, Margaret. Black-and-white photos of other kids, real kids, were sprinkled through the seasons: playing in leaves in October, swimming in July. In June, a girl wearing hoop earrings rested her chin on both palms, eyes sliding to one side of the camera, as if uncomfortable getting her picture taken. In November, a girl with long brown hair sat on the ground with knees pulled to her chest, head buried in her folded arms. I recognized these kids; they reminded me of me. Still, the sensitivity of the diary was intimidating. If Judy Blume’s books were places to get answers, seek clarity, it seemed her diary was the place to admit confusion and lay your feelings bare. But to me, just the word “feelings” sounded raw, embarrassing.
“I hope it’s an interesting year for you,” Judy wrote at the close of the introduction. “A year of challenges and choices and changes.” I was sure she was right, but I didn’t want any of these things. I was with Karen, who said in January: “I wanted everything to stay just the way it was.” I wanted to be ten again—ten is a great year, I love being ten—but the changes and challenges were coming whether I liked it or not.
January 30, 1985: All the romances in books I read all seem like, “What are you so upset about?” and I think I’ll never be so crushed over a boy. But if Trevor likes Rachel I don’t know what I’ll do.
March 14, 1985: Today I saw Dominic Brown kiss Melissa Licht and Jill Holland kiss Mike McCrea. I wonder if they’re going out or if that popular group all just kiss each other.
April 13, 1985: I think I underestimate myself. I always think I’m not popular. But I saw my name on a list of people. If you weren’t on it you weren’t “anybody.” Maybe I am popular? Well, I am too shy. I would never ask someone to play with me, be my partner. I’ll have a tough time getting dates.
April 19, 1985: We’re having a dance. I’ve never been to one before. The kid I really like will be there. I’m pretty sure his name is either Toby or David. If he’s there I hope he dances with me. Or, at least, talks to me. I can’t dance.
In the attic, I resign myself to getting nothing accomplished. I call my dad, then my sister, read them lines until we’re laughing so hard we can’t speak. I tab entries to read to my mom when she gets home from work. I keep turning the pages, sometimes laughing so hard I’m crying; I can sense my private, imaginary world preparing to collide with the real one, moving toward the point where the books ended and my own story began.
May 17, 1986: I am thirteen. I don’t feel any different. All the books about boyfriends and girlfriends that I read are around my age. What’s wrong here?
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I didn’t know then how my stories would play out. I didn’t know that I would kiss a boy when I was fourteen, say “I love you” when I was seventeen, say it and mean it when I was nineteen, get my heart broken when I was twenty, and twenty-seven, and twenty-nine. That it doesn’t hurt once, but keeps hurting; that as you get older, the feelings don’t fade. That to speak your feelings, even to argue, isn’t always a bad thing; sometimes it’s important, necessary. That one Wednesday as I was sitting down to a bowl of pasta, I would get the phone call from my parents that went like this: “Dad and I have been having some problems…”
I was twenty-eight. I had moved away from where I grew up, had jobs, students, serious boyfriends. Yet I instantly recognized this call. I had read it in a book long ago. I had written it a thousand times.
“I love you,” Mom said, and I felt devastated because I knew then how serious this was.
She passed the phone to Dad. In the pause, I picked up the bowl of spaghetti, crossed the kitchen, and threw it in the trash.
“We’re still your parents,” Dad told me. He sounded uncomfortable, slightly rehearsed. “This doesn’t change that.”
And I thought: Are you kidding me?
What do you think I am: Twelve?
In a way, I was; a decade and a half evaporated in the course of that five-minute call, and suddenly my primary role in the world was no longer girlfriend or teacher or writer. I was defined, most importantly, as daughter again. The years rewound, and I felt like I had as a child: speechless, faced with all the things I didn’t know.
In The Judy Blume Diary, the photo at the beginning of March was always my favorite: empty swings hanging over pools of thawing mud. They’re the good swings, the black rubber kind that fit snug against your hips. Now, as the attic starts to get dark, I put the diary back in the box where I found it. I go downstairs, pull on a coat, and cross the street.
Glenside Elementary looks small, like a toy school. The classroom windows are papered with cut-out snowflakes. It’s a Saturday; the playground is empty. Most of the equipment is shiny, modern, bright yellows and blues. Only the old swing set is still there, like a relic from another time.
I get on a swing and start pumping. The metal chains are cold, squeaky on the upswing, made of loose rusted links. Since my parents separated four years ago, they have been honest about their marriage, telling my sister and me all they know now, trying to keep us from repeating their mistakes. “Say what’s on your mind,” they tell us. “Always remember to communicate.” I wonder now how much I intuited when I was younger, if the necessity of raising your voice was something I sensed without being told. If, maybe, it was the presence of words unsaid that drove me to bang on a typewriter, scribble in journals, fill up my toy box with stories. Yes, for everything I didn’t know as a child, there were some things I saw with a startling clarity, like the last entry I read:
May 21, 1986: It will be fun to look back at journals like this one when I am older. I think this is one of those things that you dig up from a box in the attic and laugh over. Actually, I think this might make me sad. It might make me wish I were right back where I am now, sitting here and writing with a marker that’s running out of ink.
I swing higher and watch the outline of my feet against the sky. Though all afternoon I’d been looking backward, feeling protective of the little girl I was, she was looking into the future, feeling protective of me. At thirteen, the exclamation points were far less frequent, the bright inks dulled to blacks and blues, but the spirit of my sign-off hadn’t changed: It’s 10:20, I wrote. Tomorrow will be a good day.
I let go of the swing and hop off, landing on a patch of crunchy winter grass. Buttoning my coat, I start back across the playground, past where the old tires once sat, past the stairs where we lined up after recess. I remember one day in fourth grade, after we’d formed our ragged lines, Mrs. James made an announcement. Someone, she said, had vandalized one of the stalls in the boys’ bathroom: JH + JK.
A gasp traveled through our ranks: intrigue, excitement, and quick deduction.
Joey Healey and Jeannie Kim!
“Until someone admits to doing it,” Mrs. James said, “we’re staying right here.”
There was only a moment’s suspense before Joey raised his hand.
“It was me,” he said, stepping forward as a murmur of admiration rippled through the crowd. “I wrote it,” Joey said, and you could see even the teachers’ faces soften, torn between needing to reprimand him and maybe, just a little, admiring him, too. In the spectrum of elementary school, his was a serious offense, but he had exposed his guts, brought his true feelings to light, and this was, we all knew, an act of courage.
In kindergarten, Elise Juska discovered two antidotes to shyness: the swing set at Glenside Elementary School and her father’s Smith-Corona typewriter circa 1968. On the swings, she belted out Meatloaf’s “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”; on the typewriter, she pounded out stories. Her first one, “15 Candy Sticks for Mother,” resides on a shelf in the Glenside Elementary School Library. More recent stories and essays have appeared in Harvard Review, Seattle Review, Salmagundi, Calyx, Black Warrior Review, Good Housekeeping, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Subway Chronicles, The Hudson Review, and other publications. Elise is the author of the novels The Hazards of Sleeping Alone and Getting Over Jack Wagner, a Critic’s Choice in People magazine. She is a graduate of the creative writing program at the University of New Hampshire and now teaches fiction writing (to nonimaginary students) at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and the New School in New York City. Her third novel, One for Sorrow, Two for Joy, will be published in June 2007.
Are You Available God?
My Family Needs Counseling
Kyra Davis
People have all sorts of ideas about why Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret should be read by pubescent girls. Some feel that preteens will relate to Margaret’s anticipation about getting her period. Personally I was never all that concerned about menstruating until I actually started to do it, at which point I began praying for menopause.
Then there’s the issue of peer pressure. Obviously that’s a concern for every child as well as for most adults, and undoubtedly Margaret’s anxiety over wearing the right outfit and being liked by the right people hit close to home for a lot of readers; but not so much for me. See, I was fortunate enough to be blessed with an inflated sense of self-worth. Throughout my life I’ve managed to maintain my own unique sense of style, and I’ve always befriended the people I enjoy hanging out with rather than the people who might elevate my social status.
So when I finally started reading Judy Blume’s renowned novel at the tender age of eleven, I didn’t expect to identify with Margaret all that much. But that was before I got to the part where Margaret started to address the dynamics in her family. I remember being curled up in bed reading about the tension that existed between Margaret’s parents, whom she loved, and her grandmother, whom she adored, and all of a sudden I was Margaret. I knew exactly what she was feeling. I understood the burden of trying to maintain positive relationships with beloved family members despite their unwillingness to have relationships with one another. Margaret’s parents tried to dispel the tension that existed between Margaret’s grandmother and themselves by moving to another state. My mother and stepfather tried to escape the animosity by refusing to spend too much time with my grandparents even though they literally lived right next door. I’m not sure which solution is worse.
When it comes to childrearing, there are two types of people. First, there are those who want their descendants to do better than they did. These parents don’t want their children and grandchildren to experience the pain and/or disappointment that they experienced in their own lives and thus they try to create a different path for their children to follow. Then there are those who feel that they have lived life the way it is supposed to be lived. They want their children and grandchildren to do the same, and they do everything the
y can to encourage them to follow in their footsteps.
Margaret’s parents belonged to the first category of people. Both of them were raised in religious homes, and they experienced firsthand how religion could be used as a divider. They saw it as a beacon of intolerance and judgmental behavior. It was incredibly important to them that Margaret not experience the pain that religion had caused them, so they did everything in their power to shelter her from it.
Margaret’s grandparents (both maternal and paternal) felt that their lives had been greatly enriched by their religion. For them the idea of not raising a child with the beliefs that they held so dear was unthinkable. Margaret’s maternal grandparents disowned their daughter for the offense of marrying a non-Christian. While I’m not a Christian, I certainly know many people of that faith who would say that was a very un-Christian thing to do. But once we meet Margaret’s maternal grandparents, we realize that perhaps they were simply trying to exercise a form of tough love. They wanted to do whatever they could to convince their daughter to return to the faith even if they had to lose her in order to do it. After all, what’s a few decades of bad feelings compared to an eternity in the pits of hell?
Margaret’s parental grandmother took another route. She wasn’t thrilled with the idea of her son marrying a non-Jewish girl, but she was unwilling to cut her child, or her grandchild, out of her life. However, she was also unwilling to give up on the idea of said grandchild embracing the Jewish religion and identity as her own.
Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume Page 16
