The Barefoot Heart

“and this,” she perked,
pointing to the closed-door office
to her right,
“is the business office.”
“and this,” she perked
pointing to the closed-door office
to her left,
“is the financial aid office.”

“above us,” she continued,
“is the
President’s Office“
saying the last two words
with a distinct tone of
reverence.
“you don’t want to get sent
there.”

maybe it’s because we’re nearing the end of
the second week of back-to-back
college tours.
maybe it’s because it’s hot.
maybe it’s because i need chocolate.
maybe it’s because i’m just plain cranky to the core . . .

“but you can,” i countered
looking my nephew straight in the eyes,
“go there any time of your own initiative.”
then i told them about how when i was a student there,
and discovered that
the tape player had been stolen from my car,
i marched straightaway to the
president’s office
(said without a hint of reverence)
and announced “my tape player was stolen.”
to which the president looked across his massive desk
and said,
“well, i’m SURE it wasn’t a student.”
“can you believe a
college president
led with something
so stupid?”
i asked my nephew.

“i said don’t get SENT there,”
she perked
directly at my nephew.

“bitch,”
i thought
cause i’m not
anywhere near the
sweet zen woman
i (sometimes) long to be.

when we reached the student union,
the mailboxes
more specifically,
i mentioned how
when i was a student there,
the mailboxes were in a different building
and i was assigned a mailbox on the top row,
so high i couldn’t get the key in the lockv
without the assistance of a stool.
she listened, then reached up
and tapped the top mailbox
with a key she held.

“bitch,”
i thought
because
well, you know.

“and the most fun thing of all,” she said,
her perkiness ratcheted up
three full notches,
“is when you get a yellow
sheet of paper
saying that you have a
package.
when you get one of those,
you come to this window
and pick up your package.
did you ever get
any yellow papers?”
she asked me.

“yes, i got yellow notices,
but it could sometimes
take up to two weeks
for me to actually
lay hands on my package
because the people
employed to staff the window
didn’t actually
open the window
unless they had absolutely
nothing else to do.
but the good news is: it was
most always worth the wait.”

with that, she whipped her head around
and asked
“did anything good ever happen
when you were here?”

to which i said
“there were moments.”

and then i kept my stories
to myself
and as we walked
and she talked
i wondered
why i told the
particular stories
i told.
what compelled me?

with the possible
exception of the
president’s office story,
which was pretty obviously
a thumbing my nose
at authority,
(though it was also
about not being afraid
to go to the top,
if that seems the right
thing to do at the time)
my stories
seemed
to theme around
overcoming
adversity.
of providing a counter
to the sparkling
wonderfulness
being presented.
is it a good school, this one?
oh yes,
it’s a good school.
do bad things happen there?
absolutely, undeniably
yes.
and i’m just too cranky
to let that reality
and the ensuing opportunities for lessons of
resiliency
and assertiveness
and resourcefulness
go
unnoticed.