A (Half) Day in the Life of Benji D.
[Benji, last June, in front of Williams Elementary School,
Auburndale, Mass.]
Terminology notwithstanding, Laura was touched to see that the class was anticipating her visit with great excitement (see TCI#2 below)!
Benji had helped Laura put her four novels in a box, and he had filled up the rest of the box with chapter books — Harry Potter paperbacks, Books 1-6 — that he wanted to bring in and show his class (not chapter books that Laura had written, which she didn’t mind even though she didn’t fully “get” why he was bringing in a whole box of books that weren’t hers on a day when the whole Writer’s Workshop was supposed to be about her…). His teacher, Ms. Aronne (see TCI below), who Benji had had last year, too, for plain old kindergarten, quieted down the class and introduced her as “Benji’s Mom.”
[Here’s Brett Aronne, K/1A teacher]
Laura wished that Ms. Aronne had checked with her prior to introducing her to the class so that Laura could have clarified that when introduced in public she likes to be referred to as “The Novelist, Laura Zigman,” or “Laura Zigman, acclaimed author of four novels,” or the simple but elegant “Laura Zigman, writer.” But Ms. Aronne hadn’t checked with her, and now Laura was caught between a rock and a hard place — wishing she could express her needs and assert herself but not wanting to appear ungrateful for the invitation. Always the consummate professional, Laura smiled and basked in the collective attention she was getting from 21 little people.
Despite Ms. Aronne’s deeply disappointing introduction and the strange business with the Harry Potter books, Laura did a very quick presentation — explaining in very simple terms what she does and how she does it — She sits; She thinks; She writes, or She panics; She Obsesses; She Writes [crappy stuff that she ends up throwing away later which is the same as if she just hadn’t written anything to begin with] quicker than she’d anticipated because she could tell that as excited as Benji had been to have her come and excited as he truly was to be up in the front of the room with her and her four novels that he had helped her find in the house (he helped decide which editions — foreign or domestic? hardcover or paperback? movie-tie-in-edition or regular jacket? — she should bring in) Benji was anxious to do his show-and-tell thing with his Harry Potter books.
Had Laura been in a different state of mind — had she been, say, feeling like a failure that day because there she was doing a ‘book talk’ in front of 21 kindergartner/first graders instead of being feted somewhere at some legitimate public venue for book-buying adults — she would have gotten annoyed by the insufficient amount of time devoted to Her and Her Craft. But luckily her mood was up and once again she sailed over the indignities — Benji showing off J.K. Rowling’s books; several children yawning; one question about when snack was which Laura couldn’t answer and didn’t feel she should have to answer since she wasn’t the teacher, she was the special honored guest at that day’s Writer’s Workshop for god’s sake! — without missing a beat.
After her presentation, and after helping Benji and several of his classmates with their writing assignment — to write a three-sentence story about one particular moment in time — all the while wishing she herself could have a little time to complete her own three-sentence story about one particular moment in time (the morning she came to Benji’s school to participate in Writer’s Workshop and didn’t have time to do the assignment herself) — I mean, she was the only actual published writer in the room at the time; didn’t it make sense to give her some time and space to do what she was there to brag about — to be a Writer in a Workshop Who Was Putting Words on Paper in Real-Time As Young Children Watched in Awe and Amazement? Did no one understand how hard it was to be an author especially when no one is treating you like an author and instead only paying attention to the children in the room?
After the debacle that Laura’s visit to Writer’s Workshop had devolved into, it was time for gym. The kids filed out of the classroom and down the stairs and then out to the back of the school since it was Election Day and the gymnasium was being used for voting. As the kids gathered on the field and listened to the instructions of Mr. Tanner (a.k.a. “Mr. T.”), Laura couldn’t help having a disturbing and frightening “retro-memory” about how much she sucked at gym and how much she hated gym when she was in elementary school. (And junior high school.) (And high school.) As she sat on the cement curb of the parking lot watching the kids jump and scream and play, with smiles on their sweaty little faces but no trace of fear and humiliation and embarrassment — she was shocked to see that they were obviously actually having fun — something she never ever had in gym in all the years she was in school.
[Here’s Benji with his best buddy Chris Dare]
Gym, back in the late 60’s and early 70s, was a misery, filled with incredibly hard tasks — climbing ropes up to the ceiling; getting over The Vault; jumping hurdles; dodging the dodge ball. It required strength and coordination and competitiveness, but mostly it required the now politically incorrect Lord of the Flies Take-No-Prisoners The Meek Will Never Inherit the Earth Because All The Meek Will Be Crushed Today While Playing Prison Ball attitude of beating your opponent at any cost. Laura had none of these skills. Watching all the kids swarming around Mr. T., one of the most beloved teachers in the school, and then having Benji take a picture with him, Laura was shocked and amazed and oddly jealous by the fact that her son was actually enjoying himself in gym!
[Mr. Tanner, a.k.a. “Mr. T”]
After gym, came snack. Laura and Benji sat down at their own table back in the K/1 classroom and when they did, Benji commenced to eating his snack. Laura, suddenly hungry, not only from the exhausting gut-wrenching presentation in Writer’s Workshop an hour earlier but also from the emotional disturbance caused by witnessing Benji’s gym class, wished she’d packed herself a snack. What was she thinking that morning when she’d put Benji’s snack together in a brown paper bag because his Batman lunchbox had broken the week before? Why hadn’t she thought to pack a snack for herself? Was this not yet another example of how all of her own needs were subsumed by her child’s needs? Would she ever be able to focus on herself again the way she used to, constantly assessing and reassessing her thoughts and desires and needs and wants, putting herself first in every way possible?
As Laura pondered this unimaginably huge existential question, she reached out for one of the little bags of snacks she had packed, but she wasn’t sure which one to taste: both were Cheez-Its, but the one on the left (Laura’s left, not Benji’s left) was a traditional Cheez-It, while the one on the right (Laura’s right, not Benji’s right) was some new Cheez-it variation — one of the many products that is slightly different than the original product it’s based on* (*more about this fascinating marketing phenomenon in a later brant) and which causes consumers like Laura to become completely overwhelmed and overcome by too many choices at the supermarket and almost start to cry. Not sure what the one on the right was — it looked like some sort of new-fangled ‘baked not fried’ cracker which she didn’t trust — and not completely sure of it’s intent (she didn’t like it’s ambiguous ambivalent amoeba-like shape which belied its questionable identity: Am I a Cracker? Am I a Chip? Laura had no idea so she chose the traditional Cheez-it.
Right before snack was over, Dr. Chris Moynihan, the school principal, stopped into the class to visit. Dr. Moynihan is a gregarious, friendly, funny, affectionate person who knows every single child’s name by the beginning of the second week of every September and who stands outside every single morning rain or shine and helps get kids out of their parents cars or off the bus and into the school. Almost always this “help” includes a big hug. Needless to say, Laura felt another tsunami of insane jealousy that Benji was having a completely different (i.e. positive) elementary school experience than she was. Back in the late 60s, at her elementary school, Claflin (which is now condos), Mrs. Howard, the principal, had polio and walked with difficulty and was almost never was seen outside her office among her students. Feeling that she had been robbed of a childhood filled with hugs from a school principal, Laura wished more than anything that she could crawl over to the little area in the classroom where the pillows were and snuggle up with a stuffed animal as she nursed her infantile psychic wounds caused by so many needs unmet, but she knew she couldn’t. Her childhood, such as it was, was over and gone, she told herself for the gazillionth time, taking the double role of psychotherapist and patient she so often did when she needed to self-comfort herself. Get over it. But she couldn’t get over it. She never could get over it. And so for the gazillionth time Laura swallowed her sorrow — and a mouthful of traditional square Cheez-Its which she’d decided were way better than the Cheez-It crisps.
[Dr. Chris Moynihan, Principal of Williams]
