Chapter five

School, the prison and the playground. That is truly how it was for me. Imprisoned daily, out of the sun, in a concrete closed up structure, filled with stern and unhappy adults. I simply hated it and loved it all at the same time. Kids were there, kids, lots of kids, my favorites, were everywhere. I cherished them and being with them made my days perfect and lively. I detested the directives of the crabby adults who instead of joyfully encouraging the children to learn and grow, pushed and shoved and hollered their way of teaching. I would resist that my whole life, not only for me but for my children and all children as well. For that resistance I paid dearly. I couldn't count the number of times I was SENT TO THE OFFICE and the threats and bullying that I got from adults who were threatened and bullied too. It seemed endless. Then many years later one of the pincipals that I spent a lot of time with spoke to me and said , "those days were the best, I loved that time with you and your smiling face and big brown eyes, you were a delight". WOW what a revelation and it warmed my heart, better late than never.

Grades of colors, that is how I saw it. Each grade a different color, each letter grade another color, rating colors as they shifted instead of celebrating colors. Always competing for a higher rating and grade and if your color didn't shift under the current teacher's regime you were rated less or as a loss. I couldn't get my head around that and the love of those in the left behind position became one of my passions. I knew if I just loved you up enough it would be better, your color would brighten and it often did. Music and art and phy ed always added strength to my aura color and my life as a child here. The other stuff was ok, but not like those classes. Sports were fun as long as we played together, when it became a separate thing and one went against the other, I didn't want to play any more.

It was a long road for me in this lifetime, seemed to take forever to finish, but when it was over and I was free I soon realized that all that time had been ill-spent I was very under equipped for a life here as an adult in every way school was to have educated me. Those stupid dates that I had to memorize were of no value in the real world and I got a little lost for awhile.