2006-07-26 
 

lunch table

When I was in 7th grade, I sat at a lunch table down at the far end of the cafeteria. Large windows looked out onto a small patch of grass where the side yard of the school met a peaceful, tree-lined street just beyond the grounds.

There were only a few other kids who made the trek down to that particular spot, and for the most part, we left each other alone with several empty chairs acting as an invisible safety barrier between ourselves. Maybe the authorities sat us alphabetically at the start of the year, and we were the few who stuck to the rules after the first few weeks of school, or maybe we enjoyed the safety of being outside the noisy mix of students towards the front and center of the cafeteria. My memories flicker from one fact to the other, never settling on one idea as the actual truth. Either way, I was quite content to sit in this out-of-the-way spot, an oasis of calm in the middle of the school day.

For a while, Diane sat almost directly across from me. I could remember her last name if I had the energy to search out the junior high face book, but I wouldn't print it here anyway.

She was impossibly pretty that year with shampoo commercial hair and contemporary, but safe outfits that any mother would be proud to have her daughter wear. Miles out of my league.

She sat there without stigma. One of the good girls whose looks, intelligence and charm gave her a free pass into the A crowd whenever she wanted. That being said, for a while she chose to remain diagonally across from me at the lunch table and would sometimes make general comments in my direction.

Sometimes we'd have an actual conversation about classes, but mostly we were silent, reading whatever book we had with us. The thing I remember most clearly was her quizzing me any time she caught me in a deep daydream as I stared at the world outside the window. I never knew quite what to tell her. How to explain that I dreamt about a time after the awful, awkward years I seemed stuck in, when everything would be better than I ever could imagine?

Unfathomable as that future was, I always had faith that everything would get better someday...if only I could continue trudging through the time I faced at the moment.

So here I am, years later, thanking her for being kind to me during my time inside that brick building and letting her know that I suddenly realized I was dreaming about today.

Labels: memory lane

* posted by me at 8:59 PM

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