<friday february 7, 2003 - 8:00 a.m.>

This week has been particularly insane. I don't know where the time has disappeared to.

Emma has been home with a fever for a couple of days. I think it's just beginning to manifest itself as a cold now. I'm here at home with her while Mark goes for his allergy shot.

I am feeling a bit antsy. Perhaps I should blame it on the (too-strong) coffee I brewed this morning, but I think it's the thought of how much work I have ahead of me today that is freaking me out.

A more satisfying update to come later.

a.

<sunday february 2, 2003 - 11:06 p.m.>

In order to fully understand today's entry, you will have to read Friday's... if you haven't already.

So, back to reminiscences of kindergarten trauma.

I blame everything on Mrs. Bowes. She was my teacher. Tall, bony, gray, to a five year old she was witchlike in every aspect. I was afraid of her, as children tend to be of witchy people.

I was a shy kid. I'm not sure if I spoke English particularly well because we didn't speak English at home.

The first few lines of my kindergarten report card read: "Andrea is a very timid little girl." I think I was shell-shocked throughout my whole first year of school. I remember everything being so strange, maybe because I never went to preschool or junior kindergarten and had little "real world" experience. I wondered, why do these kids nap in the afternoon? Why don't they eat their crusts? Why does someone keep stealing my art smock - and how do I end up with paint on my back?

To fully understand the characters in this story you may want to first check out my class photo, dated October 1977. (Yes, that is Mrs. Bowes on the far right.)

I can list the things that provoked my fear of Mrs. Bowes. The zipper incident that I mentioned the other day was just one of them.

I had a green coat with a darker green faux fur trim around the hood. I also had little fur boots, as were the fashion of the day. (This was pre-Cougars) I'm don't remember liking this coat very much and I am fairly certain that it was a hand-me-down. The worst part about it was the zipper. I could never do it up and this was a constant source of frustration and anxiety.

One winter day everyone was getting dressed to leave. All the other kids quickly donned their winter garb and I was left behind, struggling with my coat. Mrs. Bowes tried to help me zip it up, but in my panic and fear I just cried. I felt trapped and helpless -- wouldn't you if a scary lady had you by the zipper?

In retrospect it wasn't a big deal, but for some reason it made a big impression. To this day when I struggle with a clunky zipper I break out in a small panic. My thoughts are usually something like "... must... hurry... damn... zipper... argh why won't it ZIP UP ALREADY!"

But panicked zipping isn't the only thing Mrs. Bowes left me with.

One day she left the room and told all of us to sit quietly in the reading circle. Instead we all ran around like crazed animals. In hindsight I can't believe she left 20 kids on their own. What if one of us had decided to run with scissors? (Actually, that never would have happened. I have a distinct memory of hating the scissors in our classroom. They were all lefties.)

While she was away a bunch of us stood sentry at the door. Her unmistakably tall and bony form rounded the corner more suddenly than we had planned.

"Sshhhhh she's coming!"

We shrieked like mad idiots and scurried back into place. The moment she stepped back into the class she picked me out and sent me to The Corner. And this wasn't any ordinary corner. It was underneath a row of heavy wet winter coats. For me, a little shy girl who only aimed to please, this was humiliating and terrible, and harsh.

I'm sure some of you are thinking that it was a deserved punishment. Yes, I admit, I hooted and hollered like a chicken with her head cut off like the rest of them, but why did I have to be the only one who got in trouble for it?

And then there was the Art Incident. Many of you probably know this story because I tend to tell it a lot. But here goes anyway.

It must have been one of the first days of school. Mrs. .Bowes sat us in a circle and gave us an introduction to art. On an easel there was a picture of a house. She explained that everything we drew had to be outlined in black. She demonstrated. I suppose she was trying to give her pictures some definition, but instead she stunted my creativity for the rest of my life. Who would have thought there is a right and a wrong way to draw things when you're five years old?

I interpreted The Required Outlining as a direct order, and figured that anything else would be construed as "wrong." So everything I drew and painted from that point onward had this crazy black outline.

Believe it or not I have the artwork to prove it. My parents had some paintings framed. They're buried in the basement. And so I present to you:

Exhibit A - "The Rainbow"

• This was one of my favourite things to paint. Note the black lines between the colours of the rainbow.
• The black things are birds
• I was obsessed with drawing trees this way. Red dots = apples.
• The thing underneath the rainbow is either a volcano or it's holding up the actual rainbow.

Exhibit B - "Our House"

• That's our house. Disregard the fact that we lived in a bungalow.
• Note the two suns. I thought two would provide more light than one. And everyone wants more sun, right? You will notice that the black didn't mix well with the yellow.
• The black and white blob on the right is my swingset
• The pink and black thing on the black hill is my mother (in real life she is not larger than the house, and now I find myself wondering how a psychiatrist would interpret this) and she is wearing a ballet tutu. No, my mother is not a dancer. No, I have never seen her in anything this pink and frilly.
• The words are my own interpretation of the painting, written by Mrs. Bowes.

Then there is this one. That's Santa in the middle, and me on a toboggan off to the side. I was especially proud of this one. Each child was to present their painting in front of the class. Perhaps over the years I've overdramatized this moment in my memory, but the only thing I remember is standing there in front of everyone as Mrs. Bowes pointed out exactly where I had gone wrong.

"You didn't outline it in black," she said. I was crushed. And I think a small part of me never recovered. Even my stick figures suck. :)

a.