5.27.2011

The Basics of Education

Ms. Koppel, with the widow's peak, taught me to stay quiet when someone else is speaking. Ms. Giumundo taught me that C is sometimes pronounced S, as in circle. Ms. Adani, more precisely it was her husband, taught me that diamonds can be yellow. What I learned from her in the third grade I had to later unlearn: that Greece and China are the same thing. For the purposes of the class play, it made for neater teams to group poor Helen with the only two asians. With Ms. McDermott I wrote my first poems. Her daughter later burned her house down with a candle.

Significant things, maybe we learn one for every year, especially those early memories, when remembrance  is based so much more in scent, touch, warmth. The meaning of warmth I taught someone once on a balcony at 6am on a Sunday.

Among other things, college taught me to carry cloth bandages when going out in heels.
In three semesters I learned to enjoy the taste of beer.

New York City taught me to take comfort in coffee. To hate rats, love cabs, and for better or worse, to not fear strangers. Its subways taught me that 45 minutes is no time at all, at the same time it taught me the difference between 9:00 and 9:03. (A huge one). Sometime after high school, after September 11th, I learned that the rush of adrenaline starts at the tops of my lungs. Then my hearing goes, then ice in my fingertips. After an attempted hold up I learned to take two Advil for the pounding aftermath of a body in a state of alarm.

I learn Chinese and forget it in phases.

Still I haven't quite learned to behave myself, and I haven't learned to cook.

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