Dancing in the dirt ...
Section 52 of “Song of Myself” is most known for the reference to Whitman’s great “barbaric yawp,” which has been referenced a few times in this blog. But there’s another line in section 52 that I’ve always loved. Whitman writes,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless.
Why look under our “boot-soles”? Because we might find evidence of some former self, some person we left in the dust as we made our way uneasily toward adulthood. For me, that would be a younger version of myself, someone who was more easily stirred by the wonder of the world. I have not forgotten about that earlier version of me, that kid who stared at the night sky from his suburban backyard for hours at a time, but as daily living gets more complicated it’s easy to lose contact with him.
As Whitman says, it is “good health” to look for evidence of that former self under our boot-soles. Nina Ochoa does that here in her post. In the third installment of our teacher series (after Rai Wilson and Ginny Robinson), young adult Nina comes to terms with high school Nina. In beautiful and artful prose, she buries her high school self -- but leaves the dirt under her fingernails.
Nina graduated from Eastwood High School in El Paso, Texas, in 2007. After completing her bachelor's degree in English at Oxford and UT Austin, she taught for two years at Loretto Academy, an all-girls Catholic school in El Paso. In 2014, she completed her master's degree in English and the humanities at UChicago. This is her fourth year teaching Upper School English at Francis Parker. Her hopes and dreams? She wants to pursue an MD/JD specializing in neuropsychiatry and mental healthcare reform.
In this post, Nina gives some love to her high school self. “This essay bears witness to a teenaged Nina and attempts radical acceptance of who she was—no advice, no changes. Whether regarding my academics, extracurriculars, or my appearance, I was ruthless with myself in high school, so this essay attempts to tell high-school me, 'You are worthy of acceptance and celebration, just as you are.'"
- C. H.
CONCORDIA CEMETERY
El Paso, TX
My mother won’t let me in the house with my shoes on. I share the dust on my boots with the 65,000 buried beneath this consecrated earth. My father meets me at the door with burning sage, and I submit to their cleansing ritual. Whispered entreaties to the divine; boots exiled to be washed in the farthest corner of the garden.
That’s how it’s supposed to go. But I’d dance in the dirt of you, you know.
I burned so brightly and smoldered so darkly in the eleven years since I last saw you, I reduced your memory to ash. In my darkness, I mourned you.
I find the place I laid you, and it’s redolent with the pages of your books, the androgynous perfume you wore, rosin from your violin bow and ballet shoes. I grab fistfuls of the earth in which I hid you—consecrated earth. I whisper entreaties to the divine.
You’re one of ten robed in gold on that day, 25 May 2007. You sit there, number six of 452, defiantly barefoot through your graduation ceremony. You are incandescent.
Ten years after that golden day, they reduce your school to rubble. They sell the bricks to raise money for scholarships. How many miles did you walk across those floors? I don’t want a brick; I want the ground upon which you walked.
You don’t realize that your bare feet on the felted carpet that day will soon carry you across continents. Those feet, tapping impatiently through exams. Those feet, marching you in your dance uniform across the field under Friday night lights. Those feet, steadying you in the alto section of the choir. Those feet, racing through pitch black hallways with your friends when you sneak into the school after dark on weekends.
I see you beneath solitary lights at your desk, the kitchen table, the den floor. Your work surrounds you, like the skirt of a gown, like debris radiating from the epicenter of a blast. You learn to write with both hands because your left hand eventually cramps too much after hours of note-taking.
Your closest friends are your greatest competition. You delight in provoking, challenging, cherishing each other. You learn to rise and rise and rise because theirs are arms that enfold you, the hands that lift you. You call yourselves Family and together you plan to steal the school’s Victory Bell to ring at graduation. Later, one of your favorite English teachers writes in your letters of recommendation, “Nina can always put those boys in their place.” You wouldn’t have the tenderness to tell those damn boys how much you love them for their friendship, for the inspiration of their brilliance.
That summer before college, you’ll sit on a roof above the city lights with your two best friends and talk about your futures. You have no idea what’s about to happen to you.
Nina, thank you. You were relentless, you were indomitable, you were resplendent in your refusal of limitation.
I see you. I see you in my sleep-deprived students. My students who sit haloed in the solitary lights of their desks after hours of practices and rehearsals and worknights. I see you in their voracious curiosity, their radiant defiance of expectation, their resilience.
I would dance in the dirt of you, Nina.
I would dance in you and march past that threshold and track your dust into my living room, my dining room, my kitchen. My feet would trace your sacred earth around my bed like a ring of protection. I’d mix you in with the roses and cacti in my garden. I’d leave you on the soles of my shoes and carry you with each step.
Ask her what she would chant to the earth to keep the dirt from swallowing her (1).
CONCORDIA CEMETERY
El Paso, TX
My mother won’t let me in the house with my shoes on. I share the dust on my boots with the 65,000 buried beneath this consecrated earth. My father meets me at the door with burning sage, and I submit to their cleansing ritual. Whispered entreaties to the divine; boots exiled to be washed in the farthest corner of the garden.
That’s how it’s supposed to go. But I’d dance in the dirt of you, you know.
I burned so brightly and smoldered so darkly in the eleven years since I last saw you, I reduced your memory to ash. In my darkness, I mourned you.
I find the place I laid you, and it’s redolent with the pages of your books, the androgynous perfume you wore, rosin from your violin bow and ballet shoes. I grab fistfuls of the earth in which I hid you—consecrated earth. I whisper entreaties to the divine.
You’re one of ten robed in gold on that day, 25 May 2007. You sit there, number six of 452, defiantly barefoot through your graduation ceremony. You are incandescent.
Ten years after that golden day, they reduce your school to rubble. They sell the bricks to raise money for scholarships. How many miles did you walk across those floors? I don’t want a brick; I want the ground upon which you walked.
You don’t realize that your bare feet on the felted carpet that day will soon carry you across continents. Those feet, tapping impatiently through exams. Those feet, marching you in your dance uniform across the field under Friday night lights. Those feet, steadying you in the alto section of the choir. Those feet, racing through pitch black hallways with your friends when you sneak into the school after dark on weekends.
I see you beneath solitary lights at your desk, the kitchen table, the den floor. Your work surrounds you, like the skirt of a gown, like debris radiating from the epicenter of a blast. You learn to write with both hands because your left hand eventually cramps too much after hours of note-taking.
Your closest friends are your greatest competition. You delight in provoking, challenging, cherishing each other. You learn to rise and rise and rise because theirs are arms that enfold you, the hands that lift you. You call yourselves Family and together you plan to steal the school’s Victory Bell to ring at graduation. Later, one of your favorite English teachers writes in your letters of recommendation, “Nina can always put those boys in their place.” You wouldn’t have the tenderness to tell those damn boys how much you love them for their friendship, for the inspiration of their brilliance.
That summer before college, you’ll sit on a roof above the city lights with your two best friends and talk about your futures. You have no idea what’s about to happen to you.
Nina, thank you. You were relentless, you were indomitable, you were resplendent in your refusal of limitation.
I see you. I see you in my sleep-deprived students. My students who sit haloed in the solitary lights of their desks after hours of practices and rehearsals and worknights. I see you in their voracious curiosity, their radiant defiance of expectation, their resilience.
I would dance in the dirt of you, Nina.
I would dance in you and march past that threshold and track your dust into my living room, my dining room, my kitchen. My feet would trace your sacred earth around my bed like a ring of protection. I’d mix you in with the roses and cacti in my garden. I’d leave you on the soles of my shoes and carry you with each step.
Ask her what she would chant to the earth to keep the dirt from swallowing her (1).
“A wild patience has taken me this far" (2).
This is a séance. I’m asking you to haunt me.
-------------------------
1. Gress, Z.K. “How to Kiss a Beautiful Girl” (2013)
2. Rich, Adrienne. "Integrity." The Iowa Review 12.2 (1981): 293-294.
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