Filters Are For Fish Tanks

Border Line Decisions~

My mom was fearless, but maybe that's because she didn't overthink things. She was the kind of person an author would use to model a character in a book. If you wanted a funny book. She had no filter, and given the number of people I've accidentally offended over the years, I don't either. Think it, say it. Albeit, there is plenty I don't say. The curse of an overactive imagination or an overactive brat? I hardly know the answer to that. I'm pleading the fifth. 

I wish I had been fearless when I was in 7th grade. I would have spoken up sooner. We had been living in the Netherlands for two years, and, except for my literature teacher, the school I went to was a disaster. A repressed science teacher telling way too many sex jokes? A music teacher showing up only twice--for the entire year? The gym classes mysteriously stopped after the winter holidays, and the math classes taught the finer points of agricultural engineering. And French lessons (when the teacher showed up) were taught in Dutch and translated back to English...you get the picture, right? I would draw you one, but the art classes were erased.

 I changed schools in 8th grade.

My mom was tired of seeing me in tears every Friday, so she found another school. In Belgium. My dad had wanted to help, too, and found a nice Dutch school close to home. He took me to an interview--all in Dutch!--with the school's headmaster. I was terrified. Not run out of the room, Jack from The Shining is chasing me with an ax terrified, more like the upside-down corkscrewing Python rollercoaster at Busch Gardens terrified. I knew I shouldn't ride it, but I did anyway. Beyond a few polite phrases, my Dutch was about as fluent as mom's ability to tell dutch dishwasher soap from dutch laundry detergent (although our drinking glasses did have a soft coating that smelled like spring). 

If I recall correctly, the conversation started with the headmaster asking, "Hoe gaat het met jou?" and me ending with, "Goed." Then I sat there admiring my ugly oversized shoes, wondering how fast I could rip out of there. Dad gave me the side-eye, and I knew he was disappointed. But what could I say? Nothing much as it turned out. 

So, I went to Belgium, the car ride taking an hour each way. I love riding in the car about as much as getting pelted with hundreds of gnats when I was stupid enough to ride my bike at dusk by the lake. Lucky for me, the journey across the border every day was worth it. I loved everything about that school, especially my classmates. 

It's amazing how productive you can be when you are happy and I wrote a lot of short stories that year as a result. The diary of a pirate's daughter, a ballerina's tragic letter to her mother, and two backstabbing archeologists who discover a lost tomb were a few. Was the last of those particularly original? Maybe not, but the trips to the Louvre had made an impression. Whenever we went to a major museum, my first question always was, "Where's all the Ancient Egypt stuff?"

Being off on my own in another country every day, I felt a little like my mom. Fearless. Not overthinking it, just doing it. Whether I was learning how to write my name in Arabic or grabbing the tram across town to dance class, I didn't overthink it. And when you let things happen, life happens, and stories flow.