Brain and Braun

I'm sitting in 3rd grade. The teacher is speaking. I am in my own little world. I am at the back of the class. Behind my book, I keep amusing myself by plugging my nose and looking wildly from side to side and making this throaty sound. I cannot stop laughing. The teacher busts me and then moves me the front of the class. I'm embarrassed. However, as the year goes on, the teacher lets us move our desks around. Some of us are in groups. I sit in this little corner in the back left room. Directly in front of me is a large open cabinet with art supplies. To my left the wall, to my right the rest of the class. A girl puts a little name tag that says "The Brain" on my desk. It is generally believed I am one of the smartest kids in class. I feel secure. I feel creative. I don't get a long with one of the girls in that class and then I develop a crush on her...what gives? I enjoy this teacher a lot.

It was only until I worked as an educator that I realized what it is this teacher had done. She allowed my and my classmates the freedom to learn in the environment which best suited us. What a great teacher! The class is full of art and animals and creativity. I just love being there. I can create. We can be imaginative. It's awesome!

But the playgrounds are another story. The friends I have had before this are not really my friends anymore. My best friend now is a girl....and that is not what 9 year old boys are supposed to do. 9 year old boys in Wishkah play kickball at recess and football. Fuck I hate football. Hate it. I hate kickball too. Not because of the game, but just because I feel like I don't have the muscle or strength of the other boys (even though I do). I'm not aggressive. I'm not tough. I am timid and I just don't feel like "competing". On the playground, me and my friend play jump rope. I learn to double-dutch. No other guys play. Well, this one boy does, he is a grade behind me and doesn't like me. What a jealous queen! Haha.

Me and DELETED become really good friends. She rides horses and hangs out with my older cousin who lives closeby because my cousin rides horses too. We play together at every recess. Years later, it is our first day of junior high and at Wishkah, this means you move to the right side of the gym. You are now on the big-kid side, and subject to their rules. You have a locker. She shows up the first day and says, "I'll walk down with ya." We do. We hang out some, but grow apart through high school. The friends I was with in first and second grade become my friends again. Pretty soon, all my friends are boys. I start doing boy things. Watching football, making sexist jokes, playing sports. I have to play flag football. I have to play basketball. I hate football so much. HATE IT! I hate practicing and I hate playing it and I feel like asking everyone else like, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU LIKE THIS STUPID ASS SPORT FOR? You run around with a ball, get hit, it hurts and people are fucking jerks to you if you screw up. Fuck I hate the older boys.

7th grade...It's raining and I am in the stands and this kid, who is now dead, shares a dry gatorade pouch with me. It is sugary and I am not really friends with the kid, but we put it in our mouth pieces and both hope we don't get put in the game. It is a flag football game, and I feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. I am so apprehensive. So nervous. So afraid I will make a mistake.

Football was pushed on me from as long as I can remember. Pushed, in a way that I knew it was there, but never actually pushed towards liking it. Just...."Your brother was the best athlete I have ever seen." "Your brother was the best white football player I have ever seen." "Your brother was the best white basketball player I have ever seen besides Larry Bird." Lofty expectations much.

My brother is 48 years old. Has three kids. Been married for 22 years and has not worked a single day in his adult life at a real job. He went to about nine different colleges chasing girls or his dream of football. I cant't recall and it isn't my job to solve his issues. I can't. He became an alcoholic and drug abuser. He quit both, cold turkey. He still astonishes me, because I know he was made into that. Made into that and I feel it when I am around him. He was made into that. Like he had no choice in the matter. Like he was clay.