In the fourth grade, I owned a fat, stubby highlighter. It smelled like watermelon. I bought it at the Scholastic book fair, an event I saved up for every year and splurged all my money on. One afternoon in class, Ms. Reid lowered the shades and played a brief video on bullying. In it, a group of kids mocked a smaller kid in the schoolyard. While watching, I uncapped the highlighter, sniffing the sickly sweet pink smell as the bullying escalated from taunting to pushing to shoving. The bullies kept pushing and pushing the kid until he was right at the edge of a road. A car approached right as they gave a final shove. The screen turned black instead of showing the kid get hit by the car. The next shot was the kid in the hospital. I felt nauseous. Whenever I smell fake watermelon in a laffy taffy or candy, I think of the video, this moment with the car, the sunlight and the field.
Outside of my house in Tucson sits a field. A wire fence surrounds the field, and a few trees sit just inside the fence. Kids at the Elementary school play in the field daily—no matter the weather, they are outside. They currently are obsessed with a circular net game in which they bounce a ball and chant and the rules are lost on me.
Moving backwards and forwards in time: in the fifth grade, my lockermate, Nick, created a mirrored shelf organizing system for his locker. In my eyes, it was stunning. But Nick was awkward, nerdy, passionate about his inventions, and I heard other people tease him behind his back, giggle when he brought in some new shelf or organizer. In the way of any goody two shoes, I told my teacher, tattled on the bullies, most likely due to the influence of my fourth grade film. She spoke with the bullies; they quieted.
When the school year started in Tucson, it was too hot to walk during school hours, so I strolled at dusk. I walked the perimeter of the wire fence, the perimeter of the field. My first discovery was a half-finished sketch of a dog in the style of Paw Patrol. I picked it up. Maybe I’d collaborate! I brought it home, set it on my desk. I thought maybe I’d curate a collection of elementary collaborations. Abandoned art that I could finish. One friend suggested I paint it and then drop it back into the field for the original artist to find. I loved the idea but wasn’t quite ready for that level of release. The second item I found was cardboard wrapped in sparkly pipe cleaner and tape. SO beautiful! How could I add to it? Third, a paper airplane with “1989” written on the wings. Blue painters tape held it together and bunched the tip of the plane so it could hit the ground and not bend. Eventually I water colored the dog drawing with orange and pink. But the other scraps were too perfect in their touched and left-behind form. I didn’t want to mess with them.
In the seventh grade, I sat behind Catherine Z in history class. She dressed in all pink and hung with the popular kids and had straightened hair and was a cheerleader. Her elated manner bugged me, and during class I took scraps of paper and put them onto her head without her noticing. Until she shook her head and they trembled and fluttered all over her desk. People giggled. She turned to me and glared, “I hate you.” All of a sudden I had turned into bully. I just looked back at her.
When I see the kids in the field, they’re usually playing but there is almost always some sort of cruelty involved in the play. Two girls pin down another girl and release her. When she runs away, one of the girls sprints to catch her and drag her back. Kids punch each other. They hide from one another. The more I witness, the more I’m reminded of how play devolves into pain so quickly. This obsession with owning with coveting with power. It’s so present in kids. My own obsession with owning with coveting with power. It remains.
When I grab the found school items, I project my own starry-eyed wonder onto them. But these objects are not romantic: spelling tests, lists of kids, car keys forgotten or loaned. A note to have a good day. A collection without context can tell whatever story we wish. For me it is that unfinished is beautiful, crude is beautiful. But when I walk past the kids playing I remember the many layers of childhood, how quickly they flip. How fast power shifts. How fast a spelling test becomes a sob or a jubilant hand raise. How fast forgotten car keys can destroy a day. I do love these items, but I don’t know what they represent besides that they were touched, left behind, undone, and windblown.
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