At 14, I thought I was
on the cusp of something. In a quest for
perfection, I took up ballet. I quit eating and fell to 95 pounds. Snapped a flag in color guard, sang in the
chorus, made a best friend. I was
planning on medical school--loved to trace the blue, latex-filled veins, the
ropy nerves of the tomcat frozen in the midst of a mortal yowl. I loved the soft swish of mesentery tearing
from muscle. It was comforting to name
the cranial nerves, the bones, even their holes and ridges. The tests were meant to be hard, but I aced
them easily.
In 1969, my biology
class traveled by bus to a marine wildlife refuge off the Jersey coast. About the refuge I have only a vague
impression: reeds, heat, sand, and salt, the raw croaking of seagulls. In the
paper we had to write, I made what felt like a risky confession: “The best part
was lying on the boardwalk in the sun.”
Mr. Matt returned the paper marked with a big red A, and a comment next
to my confession: “As good a reason as any!” I felt relieved but also uneasy:
Did I believe him?
Now I rest on the
boardwalk like a limpet, waiting for the sun to seep through me. I’ve closed up shop on the children, the
teaching, the giving to others. The
barnacles of time and age are weighing on me.
I’m not sure I believe in Darwin anymore, the simple mechanics of
natural selection, the knowable world.
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