On Being Found
When my friends strayed off the nature center trail to explore the thicket, I made up an excuse to stay back. All that brush, it would surely set off my allergies. I took a few steps, edged up to a branch and rubbed my eyes to prove it.
I take pills for that, you know. I’d better stay here.
A health condition bought more social clout than childish fear. But the truth? I was afraid of the wood ticks.
I’d already been to the nurse’s office once that Spring, gripping the arms of a cold steel chair while she coaxed out the tick with a little squirt of oil and a sharp pair of tweezers.
Everyone knew the woods were crawling with them.
Besides, there were rules about leaving the path.
I’ve forgotten how long I stood there, drawing shapes in the dirt with my feet and listening for my friends to come back.
Maybe it was just minutes. Perhaps a full hour.
Little girl legs exposed between my shorts and sneakers were ripe for the sting of mosquitoes as I slapped back the gnawing realization that my friends were not coming back. When they discovered the clearing on the other side of the brush, they forgot I’d stayed behind.
I was no longer part of a third grade field trip.
I don’t remember the panic of being lost. And I don’t remember if I set off in search of my friends or froze on the trail waiting for someone to come for me.
What I do remember is the humiliation of being found.
::
A teacher I did not recognize escorted me to the interpretation center. She seemed to know who I was without asking.
My own teacher, my class, my bus had already left.
They didn’t wait for a stray. There were flashcards to review, I suppose.
The other teacher sighed and scowled at me more often than most folks did and I wondered if she hated kids or field trips or just me. I tried to explain.
They went off the path. We’re supposed to stay . . . on the path. I was sneezing . . . wood ticks . . . and we’re supposed to stay . . .
I stopped talking. My combined fear of insects and of going outside the lines seemed to evoke more contempt than pity. So I took interest instead in the burrs now tangled in my untied shoelaces.
Without a word, the other teacher pointed to a waiting school bus, already stacked with other kids I did not know. I crept up the tall steps and slipped into the first empty row, pressing myself hard into the corner.
If I could fade into the seat cushion, the other kids — the ones who already knew where they were — would have no one to point at while they whispered to one another.
I found myself more alone in a bus load of 66 capacity children than on a dirt path in the middle of the woods.
Of course, it was growing familiar, this gangling nine-year-old’s yearning to be something less than a throbbing, swollen thumb sticking out of the landscape of elementary school.
We’d moved across town midyear, and I still carried a bit of the scent of the new kid. I spent much of that first recess laid out on a snowbank. Kimberly Jensen owned the playground and welcomed me with a fist to the belly while I hung carelessly exposed from the monkey bars.
And I ran home from the bus stop every day because Jennifer Harris whispered threats in my ear. She was big and mean, but slow. I figured I could keep outrunning her, but the shadow of impending death was overwhelming.
After a week of terrified sprinting, I got off the bus, set my bookbag on the ground and surrendered. From my hands and knees I asked the asphalt to swallow me as I felt the thud of her fists and elbows and knees to my midsection.
::
When the wheels wrenched to their halt in front of Central Elementary School, I sat still in my seat.
The other students filed out of the bus, laughing and poking one another, but each pausing at my row to stare at the lost girl display like they’d gawked at stuffed beavers and woodchucks sticking up on rods in the exhibition hall. I willed my mismatched shirt and shorts to blend into the surgical green inside of the bus.
When the rest of the kids were gone, I stood and walked to the front. I plotted how I might sneak back into the classroom unnoticed. I’d stop in the bathroom, wash up and walk in all casual, whistling like nothing had happened. But the other teacher was waiting on the curb. She cut into my path and ordered me to the principal’s office.
Where the bad kids go.
::
The tears hadn’t let loose yet, and I wouldn’t let them, but my cheeks had burned red since the moment that teacher had spotted me lost and alone on the trail.
I’d always thought people searched for ones missing, even if they’d foolishly wandered off. I thought people were sad when they lost someone, happy when they were found.
Where was the ring? The fatted calf?
Perhaps not all recoveries warranted celebration and rejoicing.
I don’t remember anyone asking if I was okay. I don’ t remember anyone asking if I needed a glass of water.
Nobody stroked my hair or held my hand or told me how worried they’d been.
And I wondered, at the time, if it were not better to stay lost than to be found.
In the staying lost, I reasoned, at least one could carry on unnoticed.
::
Photos: Top: Marc Gerardi Bottom: Gerla Brakkee
Oh my goodness. This takes my breath away. And makes me cry. For so many reasons. On so many levels. Really. I am whispering here. So very, very thankful for you.
2011/05/30 at 10:31 PM
Don’t cry, Deidra.
2011/05/31 at 5:21 PM
Can’t help it…
2011/05/31 at 8:13 PM
Me too.
Different details, same 9-year-old.
I’m awed at your ability to write so beautifully of such a hard, hard time…and write it so that instantly, I see myself in the words.
2011/05/30 at 11:12 PM
We all had to grow up, didn’t we? And we all had our moments. Thankfully they don’t all last too long. Thanks for stopping by Sheila.
2011/05/31 at 5:22 PM
oh, Lyla.
I wrap my heart around yours.
2011/05/31 at 9:50 AM
Good to see you, Deb. I know you’re wrapped around your kids right now, but we’re missing you all the same.
2011/05/31 at 5:23 PM
I can barely breathe for the lump in my throat. I have no words. Grateful for you and the beauty that shines through you.
2011/05/31 at 11:40 AM
Breathe, Sandy. Breathe. The Tigers are up soon and I don’t want you to miss it.
2011/05/31 at 5:24 PM
Go Tigers!
2011/05/31 at 8:13 PM
Tigers? Et tu, Deidra?
2011/05/31 at 8:16 PM
So sorry, Lyla . . .
2011/06/02 at 8:54 AM
You’ve given us a major sermon here and you’ve made the point without seemingly making a point of it. I believe your story is heart-rending because we’ve all experienced it on some level–we relate. And we might also relate to the hard-hearted teachers because we’ve all been harried and we’ve all wanted to deny–or not identify with–the pain. You’ve given us much to think about.
And beyond that, sharing this story requird exposing yourself–being vulnerabe. That’s where truth resides. Thanks.
2011/05/31 at 12:09 PM
Thanks, Solveig. Hard for me to stop short of the sermon, sadly enough. Once in a while…
2011/05/31 at 5:24 PM
Wow. Just wow. No words.
2011/05/31 at 1:52 PM
Thanks Nancy.
2011/05/31 at 5:25 PM
Powerfully persuasive. It’s like pulling the cover over my face in the morning, or blending in the shadows at work, or sneaking in the back row at church. “Just let me be!”
2011/05/31 at 2:45 PM
David, that’s me. Blending and sneaking. “Below the Radar” is my motto.
2011/05/31 at 5:25 PM
Oh Lyla, my heart aches for your little girl heart. I wonder if we all have those lost moments. Childhood can be a scarey place when there is just one little thing that happens to set us apart.
You, dear heart, are a superb story-teller. I always get lost in the story.
2011/05/31 at 4:31 PM
Oh Linda, you’re such a sweetheart. I think we do, most of us, have those moments. Even when we’re grown up.
2011/05/31 at 5:27 PM
This is so raw and so me and so all of us. Wow. The most amazing thing is being found…by the only One who can really find us. And the tears at how often I have been that little girl, and how often this grown woman has felt like that little girl, and how often I have been that teacher.
Oh boy.
This brings up a lot of memories.
2011/05/31 at 4:58 PM
Jessica, thanks for coming by. Yeah, I think we are, all of us, all of them. Funny how often.
2011/05/31 at 5:28 PM
Jessica,
Thank you for reminding me that while I feel the little-girl pain, I’ve been the teacher, too.
2011/05/31 at 5:41 PM
Oh Lyla…too bad we did not grow up in the same school, in the same part of the country. This story you tell…I have so many like them except I was too afraid to even leave the adult supervisors for fear of getting lost where no one would find me. Ugh- and the whold tick thing???? Just you writing about them…made me have to go and do a tick check…LOL
I do so appreciate your writings Lyla…so thank you for sharing a little piece of you.
2011/05/31 at 7:01 PM
Oh, Julie. It may or may not have been a wood tick last week that made me remember this story. (And seriously? What are we doing with wood ticks — already two this season — when most days we can still see our breath around here?)
You’d have been in far better shape than me. You would not have been lost and posed such a nuisance to your adults, and you’d have been back in class settled in with your flashcards while I was scorned by a very imposing principal with a very scary hairdo.
2011/05/31 at 7:05 PM
Lyla! This breaks me heart…and I was RIGHT. THERE. You are an incredible storyteller. I seriously looked up from my laptop into my kitchen and had to blink myself back into reality.
I’m so glad God doesn’t give up looking for the lost ones. And I just know he rejoices when even one of His is found. (isn’t that in the Bible somewhere, that God rejoices when even one comes back to the flock…or something like that?).
2011/05/31 at 7:22 PM
He does, yes! He makes a really big huge deal out of that.
Just like sitting there on the bus though? I was always a little suspect that He found finding me about as inconvenient as that teacher did.
2011/05/31 at 7:30 PM
Lyla – This was so good. I loved that the story went where it needed to go. No happy ending, no moral except for the ones growing organically with each beautifully planted sentence. As I was reading this, it made me think of my own stories, which aren’t exactly like this one, but are hard all the same. I’m not sure I always remember them so honestly. I think it might be easier not to. But oh, the power they can bring when we let them go.
2011/05/31 at 8:07 PM
I think often it’s much easier not to. No happy ending that day, but there were many other days, much better ones.
2011/05/31 at 9:50 PM
you are a cute as a button and
i’m gonna give you a gold star for this story!
2011/05/31 at 10:37 PM
2011/05/31 at 11:21 PM
It’s hard to imagine you–the woman with the big work boots–getting beat up. Powerful. I think we teachers (and parents) just get immune to the pain we see in our young ones because there is just so much and it takes so much energy. We are blessed when God shows us how much we still need His grace, making us much more open to extending mercy and aid to others.
2011/05/31 at 11:38 PM
Ah, Jennifer. Shy, small (inside) and a pushover. Big boots or not.
2011/06/01 at 10:20 PM
This traumatic experience from your youth, so well written, has apparently struck a responsive chord with your readers. As the emails between you, your mother and I confirm, this event is news to us. I don’t know what our reaction would have been but I suspect that Ms. Ogre may have heard from us. I don’t know if you related this experience to your siblings at the time but you must have sworn them to secrecy since they never ratted you out. One blessing, out of many, that has arisen from your blog is that we keep learning of events 40 years after the fact.
I’m convinced that most parents have labored under the misconception that their kids either tell them everything or friends, neighbors, teachers and Sunday School superintendents kept them informed. Ah,the joys of parenthood from the hindsight of 40 years. I’m looking forward to the further (and previously) untold adventures of third grader Lyla.
Dad
2011/06/01 at 7:28 PM
Dad, I doubt my siblings knew of this incident. I’m pretty sure I swore it would never be spoken of again. Though at least Laura may have known about the school bus fiasco. Not that she could do much about it — Jennifer Harris had an older sister.
I’m pretty sure there are more humiliating stories from that 3rd grade year that I could tell. But I won’t.
2011/06/01 at 10:24 PM
My mom is discovering things from my blog she never knew, too . . .
2011/06/02 at 8:58 AM
Ahhh. The bus and bus stop. Not a happy place. Jennifer had a good arm. I recall icy-slushballs running down the inside of my shirt and snowbanks face first.
All true. God protected us there. I recall a couple of boys that had a mean game there too. Preferred the 20 mile walk to jr hi to the bus. Ackk. Great story well told. And I really was there for some of it. The rest I’m sworn to secrecy.
2011/06/08 at 6:18 AM
OH, this says so much! So, so much!
I am convinced – without knowing you or reading through your blog to discover if you already do this – that you are a story teller through and through. I see a book about this subject in your future. And how being lost on a field trip symbolizes so much more in our lives – and how we can live lost and get ourselves to be invisible, and then feel as though we need to stay that way. So many times I’ve heard people – especially women – say they’d like to be invisible if they had a super power. But, it’s not how God calls us to live. And though humans fail us and look the other way because they’re living their own life and pride gets in the way – He still wants us to live boldly and confidently in the ways He’s called us, Free.
There’s so much more I could say here and I’m so glad for the imagery your true story projects.
Rich blessings as you live out your story, Lyla…
2011/06/02 at 9:01 AM
I just wanted to say that I agree with Amy. That is all.
2011/06/03 at 11:30 AM
I think I was lost there with you …
You’re so very good at this telling of life.
2011/06/02 at 6:55 PM
Thank you for sharing your heart and your life. I came to you via HighCalling Blog — so glad that I took the time to stop by and read your story — beautifully written, powerfully expressed, tenderly exposed … may the Lord bless you as you see Him and His tuths through this painful experience … thank you. thank you.
2011/06/02 at 9:52 PM
Lyla, I’ll add my Wow here. This is a powerful tale. And I’ll agree with Sheila that though I’ve been the lonely, moved-alot kid on the bus, I’ve been the teacher, too. How to know what a kid is feeling, fearing, thinking? For efficiency’s sake and for the sake of following my own rules, I’m sure I’ve trampled on others.
Thanks very much for this.
2011/06/16 at 10:16 AM
I’ve been both as well, likely more often the latter. Thanks Sam, always appreciate your kind words.
2011/06/16 at 2:20 PM