A Day on the Front Lines

So, it's Monday. Not my favorite day of the week, I'll say that right up front. School starts back then, usually after weekends that have been too short. Today was no different than any other. I overslept. No surprise. I didn't feel great either (just one of those things, I knew I wasn't sick), and didn't manage to get down more than a couple of little containers of yogurt, I knew I was going to so regret it later when I was so hungry I felt light-headed. Ran out, got on the bus, and headed off. Sean, a friend who rides my bus--my only real friend at school, really--and I usually head down to the V.I. resource room (he's blind as well), because we get there so early and it's just a place to hang out. Mrs. W. and Mrs. B. (braillist and Sean's V.I. teacher) were there already as usual, and we found ourselves entering in the middle of a spirited discussion of disability rights and improvements that could be made in our community--like our cruddy transportation system, for one. Mrs. B. was describing a meeting she'd attended, in which she'd explained all this to a group of people who apparently have power to move the mountins, or at least nudge them, shift the dirt and rocks and make them think about moving. "We, as teachers, want our students to be independent," she said, quoting herself, "and we do our best to encourage them in that. But they can't be fully independent if they don't have everything they need, to get around, to have a better quality of life and so on. And you have to fight for it. I mean, here on the front lines, that's what we do. The kids daily have to remind their teachers that they need their work in Braille, and then you get the teachers that just don't get it--and never get it." (Please not, this is not a direct quote, only as best I can remember.)

"Yeah, no kidding," I said. "Then you have the teachers that *really* don't get it and--and act like they have something against you or something--I don't know what the deal is there."

"Well," said Mrs. B., "I think with a few of them, they look at it like they have enough to do already and this is just one more thing on their plate."

"Okay," I replied, "I can take that. But what about all the extra stuff *we* have to do? Extended time and constant reminders and all the rest we all know about?"

"Exactly, I know..."

I don't remember where the conversation went after that; it meandered off into a lot of things. But one thing, one phrase stuck out in my mind, and lingered there all day like the encouraging clear call of a far-off trumpet: "the front lines." For years I've been wanting to do something, to fight for things that need fighting for and that are too often let go. Maybe this is it. Maybe I really am on the front lines right now. Yes, I know I am. I entered the ranks when I was fifteen years old and went off for eight weeks at the Colorado Center for the Blind, and got a taste of what it's like to live in the real world. Lord willing, I'm leaving the public school system next year, to return to homeschooling. An argument might be that with that step, I'd be leaving those ranks. But it isn't so. This world is a mountainous region. Maybe I'll have climbed over one when I get out of this school, and I hope I get to stroll in the valley for a little bit, but not too long. There will always be more mountains ahead.

At lunch, I got called on by an admin to give the SAT word of the day and its definition. The word was "capacious." I knew it, naturally, and the admin was enormously pleased. "I knew, I just knew you'd know it, Elizabeth, because of your hearing," he enthused.

I laughed nervously. "My hearing? Um...I just like vocab."

"But you do have a heightened sense of hearing," said April, one of the girls across the table.

"No, people just think I do because I have to use it more." What weird things people come up with, I thought for the hundred billionth time in my life.
"Well," said the admin, "could one of you girls fill this form out for her since it's not in Braille?"

"Sure, I will," said another girl, Chelsea. Then she asked me to spell out my first and last name. Apparently when the form is entered, I get a chance to win a twenty-five-dollar gift certificate to a local shopping center. After Chelsea had written my name down, she turned to her neighbor and said, with laughter in her voice, "She can't even tell if I put the right name down or not. I could put anything down and she wouldn't know. I just thought it was funny," she added quickly after waiting for me to say something and not getting any response except a face which, I hope, was as reproachful as I felt. I couldn't say anything to that. I laugh at a lot of things, a lot of things that could be hurtful if I let them, but I'm not an angel or a hero from a nineteenth-century novel. I can't laugh at that. I don't care about the stupid certificate; if I did win and Chelsea asked me for it, I'd give it to her. But I was shocked that she could say that and laugh about it. I don't know if she wrote my name down or not, and I don't care so much about that, but the motive behind the words. What was she trying to do? Be intentionally hurtful? Or was she just joking? Maybe those who have told me I'm too trusting are right, after all. I should know that by now, but what is it really going to take to wake me up to the harsh realities of this world? I know, of course, that I can't take everyone's meannesses and taunts to heart; half of them aren't said out of anything but carelessness. But it troubles me, both for Chelsea's sake and my own.

Got report cards today. I have an A in my hardest class.

I started reading that book, Angels Fall, on the bus-ride home, and it's really good so far. I like Roberts' writing style.

I don't have too much homework tonight, and writing and perhaps a story by a favorite online author awaits me when I'm done--and I sure do want it now.

You know, life might throw surprises sometimes, nasty little ones of no real consequence, but overall, it's pretty good, here on the front lines.