My earliest school experiences were either preschool, kindergarten, or very early grades.  I don’t remember which or much about them, but as I’m trying to put together some childhood memories before they disappear, it’s school time.  The school that had me feeling the youngest was an overtly christian one in a rustic looking piece of suburb.  The driveway and parking lot were gravel and dust, and there were largish deciduous trees all around.  Probably this was preschool?

I remember making gingerbread houses for xmas.  I’m not sure if we used legit ginger pieces or the cheapo version, with graham crackers, but the icing was good enough.  We built them around trimmed down milk cartons, as a mold.  Seems like an advanced craft for somebody who had only been walking for a few years.  Of course, there were hand turkeys and all the usual shit.

There was a playground with some pretty good-sized equipment.  I remember the centerpiece of it was almost like a house.  I could stand up to my full height under the platform.  I wasn’t a total misfit, but I was very outnumbered by girls.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I played Bosley to some Charlie’s Angels at some point, of which my sister was one.  Hey, she was a biracial angel years before Ella Balinska was born.

Again, I feel like I had a girl or two who were fascinating me and I didn’t understand why yet.  Not precisely, but I was kinda precocious in this regard.  One of the girls looked kinda like me with light eyes and buck teeth, but had short black hair*, and another one had long brown hair.  Maybe I was more interested in the brown-haired girl but got along with the black-haired one better?  I have a dim memory that I might have gotten as far as baby-styled “going steady” if I’d stayed there much longer.  We never did stay in one school for long, as it happened.

We’d play tag with these rules.  The person who was “it” knocked on the playground house and the people inside say, “who’s there?” It says “Big Bad Wolf.” We say “What do you want?” It says “Colored eggs.” We say “What color?” and It has to guess. When they guess the color you were thinking, you had to run out of the shelter and get chased?  My recollection breaks down here.

We had a cat at some point and lost it.  I forget the cat’s name but think it was orange tabby.  This bothered me enough that when a teacher told us about prayer, that was the first thing I prayed for.  No dice.  Further, while I could conjure a vague white glow when I closed my eyes and did the rigamarole, I realized that I was just imagining it, and that stopped it cold.  When you tell a kid about prayer for the first time, there’s probably more clever ways to do it, ways less likely to result in atheism.  They blew it and I was an atheist for life already.  Not long after that, I remember realizing I didn’t even remember the missing cat – not really – and was disturbed by the fact.  Growing brains do weird things.

There was a school play where I had to perform as a shepherd, with a crappy sheep hook made out of paper towel rolls and constantly falling to pieces.  On the night of the play I don’t know if I even got in two words before I turned bright pink and laughed until they removed me from the stage.  Earliest memory of this tendency I have, but it’s still a thing.  Usually happens in situations where I should be afraid, and am on a subconscious level.  Like the ghoulish humor I fell into when my husband had his gall bladder removed and was all messed up.

There was another school-esque situation we were in for a minute, in a more urban location.  Where that one had been gravel and grass, this one was beauty bark and concrete.  More shadows from neighboring buildings.  I didn’t get along with anyone but don’t remember fighting.  Just remember an enforced nap time that I was usually awake through.  And breaking a finger for the first time.  I’d gone off alone and was finding the cool metal of the front gate appealing.  I ran my little hand inside a groove there, and when it opened automatically for a car, snappo.  Not a serious break, but enough that the staff should’ve done something about it sooner than they did.

Lastly, I remember another school which tried to teach us American Sign Language.  This was more like a regular school so probably first grade.  I was ahead on English skills so it felt like baby school.  I fancied myself an artist but I was the only one in class that fucked up our papier-mâché Easter eggs, by not putting enough mâché on that shit.  I probably cried.  I recall starting to hate school about then.  I remember this school was racially diverse and had those big tires on the playground you could hide in, maybe monkey bars? but little else.

These were the only schoolish experiences I’m pretty sure happened when we were living in that housing project.  I remember nothing of the teachers except that they were women.

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*Wow, it’s really weird with these memories of memories, how removed they are, trying to feel your way back to something like this.  Maybe her name was Iris**?  And for the life of me I can only picture her as looking like one of my own childhood pictures with darker hair and more colorful clothing.  Eh, small enough kids all look the same, so probably not all that inaccurate.

**There are mandolins in that song?  I didn’t remember that.  Why didn’t I remember that?