The Sheila Variations

Missing my wings

As a child, I was a Brownie. All of my friends were Brownies. It was part of being a kid. My memories of Brownie meetings and Brownie activities are rather dim. I have other memories from those long-ago days, very vivid ones, stuff that has to do with sitting on the hot bulkhead eating a popsicle, and running through the sprinkler in the backyard - wearing a swimming cap - why? - and the smell of the mud in the woods where Jen and Katy and I would play and make up games, and the sound of the screen door slamming on summer nights, and the time I crashed my bike into a mailbox and got a huge cut, and skating with Andrew in the pond in the woods and how he would steal my hat and I would chase him - we were 11 - but even now, as an adult, I can't think of anything more romantic than cavorting across the ice in the middle of the woods - ON ICE SKATES - trying to get my hat back ... I have a lot of vivid sensoral memories from childhood, but very little remains in my head about "being a Brownie".

What does remain is how it all ended.

At the end of my sojourn as a Brownie there came a moment which I think of now as my first loss of innocence, my first real disappointment. I can laugh at it now, whatever, I can turn it into a cute story, but it absolutely crushed me when I was 8 years old. It was the first time that a dearly-held illusion of mine was shattered. It wouldn't be the last, but like Cat Stevens wrote so eloquently: "The first cut is the deepest." I suppose I should be grateful that it came from something as benign as a Brownie meeting, and not something more ominous. But whatever, this is my blog, my story, and this is the story of my first encounter with the inevitable disappointments of life.

You don't lose your innocence all at once. It's a gradual process. Bits and pieces are chipped away, as you go through your life. This story is about that first piece ... being chipped away.

So here, briefly, are the memories of Brownie-hood before "the Fall" -

-- I remember having meetings in the big cafeteria ("caf")/gymnasium at South Road School - which was called "the Multi-Purpose Room". In retrospect, I just love that name. It really tells it like it is. "Okay, so we're all going to go watch a play now in the Multi-Purpose Room!" "Let's go eat in the Multi-Purpose Room." "It's rainy today - so we have gym in the Multi-Purpose Room!" And of course: "After school Brownie meeting - Multi purpose room." All of us little Brownies sat in a circle as the troupe leaders (who were mothers of my friends) led the meeting. It's hilarious to think: I have friends now, old old friends, from college, etc., who have kids of their own, and are now Brownie troupe leaders. Those women seemed so OLD to me! They were younger than I am now. I remember too that the mothers who led Brownies (and this is neither here nor there - I'm not making a judgment - it just happened to be that way in my little troupe) were the kinds of women who had bleached done hair, Lee Press-on nails, and were tanned, year-round. They were also the kinds of women who didn't go to the big public beach - like my family did, and most other people did - but were members of "beach clubs", where they rented "cabanas". It was a foreign world, I tell ya. They smoked long thin cigarettes and when I played with their daughters at their houses, sometimes they would put out bowls of candy for us. CANDY. A far cry from the Saltines and popsicles available at my house. To use my mother's terminology - these women were "jazzy". Again, this is neither here nor there, this is just a post about what I remember, and that's one of the things that I remember.

Other things:

-- I remember marching in the Parade, and feeling so proud of my little brown uniform, my little beanie hat. I particularly loved holding the flag - Oh, my heart swelled with importance. I tripped on my shoelaces, however, and fell while holding the flag. But you know what? I loved telling that story when I met up with my parents at the end of the parade route. I turned it into a rollicking good tale. I was good at that: turning moments of adversity into jokes - where the joke was on me. I loved (and still love) jokes where the joke is on me.

-- I remember being absolutely entranced with the "Brownie book" - which I don't think they use anymore. Probably because it had too much of a pagan slant and religious parents would object. I mean, fine, whatever floats your boat, but please: I came from a religious family, but I always appreciated a good fairy tale. The book tells the story of the Brownies, with illustrations - I can still see those illustrations in my mind. They were so evocative. The Brownies were small fairies who would creep out into the moonlight around a magical pool in the middle of the woods - and dance and sing their Brownie songs ... Well, that for me was the ENTIRE appeal of being a Brownie. I wanted to be part of that pixie fellowship. I could see the silver moonlight, I could hear the rustling of the leaves, I loved the darkness, the cool dew, the feeling of a secret special ritual ... I was totally in the Brownies for THAT.

Little did I know that, in actuality, being a Brownie had nothing to do with shimmering moonlit nights and pagan rituals around a mirrored pool. It was more about gluing interminable amounts of spray-painted macaroni onto random pieces of cardboard.

I was never into prose, especially in terms of life-style, even back then. I always preferred poetry. The romance of the moonlit woods. I wanted life itself to be poetic. I suppose I still do. There's a beautiful moment in Postcards from the Edge when Meryl Streep says, in a moment of revelation, "I want life to be art." Count me in. I wanted to crawl into the illustrations of my Brownie book. I wanted the poetry, the possibility of something magical happening.

I accepted the "prose" nature of being a Brownie, mainly because that was what you did. I didn't really question it. I didn't really enjoy Brownies, truth be told, but everyone was in Brownies. So I had to be there. But our meetings in the Multi-Purpose Room were a pale ghost of the extravaganzas that went on in my imagination, secret meetings in the middle of the night, out in the woods.

But all lukewarm things must end, and it was time to move on and become a Girl Scout.

The moment when we would become Girl Scouts was referred to as "flying up". The troupe leaders also talked about how we would "get wings". There would be a "flying up ceremony".

All of this was never explained to us in literal terms. Or if there ever was a literal explanation of what "flying up" actually meant - I was out that day. I took it all completely literally - since no one explained to me that the whole thing was basically just an elaborate metaphor for a "graduation" ceremony. This "flying up" thing, to me, resonated and shimmered with magic. "The flying up ceremony"....It sounded so ... fantastical. So exciting! What did it mean? What would happen at the ceremony? What were the "wings" we were going to get? It all was so mysterious.

I truly believed that somehow - during the ceremony - I would "fly up". To where was still unknown, but I would "fly up". There were "wings" that I would get that would help me to do this.

Some sort of transformation was going to take place. THAT was clear.

I pictured the wings in my mind and I imagined that they would be elaborate huge constructions - wings that would make Icarus envious. They would HAVE to be big if they were going to carry us up off the ground. I imagined them into reality in my brain. I worked it all out. What I imagined was real to me - not something that I HOPED would happen, but something that WOULD happen. I got very specific in my imaginings. Some of the wings (we each would get two, one to fit over each arm) were made of actual feathers, soft as down. But there were other wings made of sparkles, and glitter. It would only be revealed on the day of the "flying up ceremony" what kind of wings each of us would get. I wondered if mine would be the feathered kind. I thought that I would prefer big feathery wings to the glittery ones - but I told myself that I wouldn't mind either way. I made a promise to myself that I would be happy with whatever pair of wings I got, even though I preferred feathers. I talked myself down from disappointment beforehand. "It'll be okay if the wings I get are glittery. It won't matter." It is amazing to me, in looking back, how realistic I was with myself, in the days leading up to the "flying up ceremony", preparing myself for the disappointment ... It's like somewhere I knew. I knew that disappointment was going to inevitable ... with the kind of soaring hope I harbored in my heart ... No way could the "substance of things hoped for" ever live up to what was in my mind.

The fantasies about the wings went even further. (And this element, to me, is the most interesting thing about the entire memory) Not only did I imagine what the wings would look like, the wings which would help us "fly up" to be Girl Scouts during the "flying up ceremony" - but I also imagined what the wings would be like a couple months after the ceremony, crushed in the bottom of my closet, once the novelty of them wore off. That, to me, was THE most pleasing fantasy of all: to be "over" the wings, to be lackadaisacal about what was going to prove to be a transcendent experience. "What are those feathery things in my closet? Ah, those are nothing ... no big deal ... just my wings from my flying-up ceremony ... No big deal ..." I LOVED that fantasy. Even more than dreaming about the upcoming "flying up ceremony" - I LOVED fantasizing about being "over" the wings, and seeing them crushed in a heap in the bottom of my closet.

So the big day comes. The day when all the Brownies will "fly up".

The ceremony was held in the Multi-Purpose Room. I had wondered to myself: How will we get high enough up, so that we will actually be able to fly? I had thought, Well, maybe they will stack some of the lunch tables on top of each other, and then put them on the stage ... Maybe that will be high up enough for when we put on our wings ...

Again: This all may sound incredibly silly. But nobody had ever actually told me what the ceremony was going to be, none of those jazzy tanned mothers had ever explained to me that "flying up" was just a metaphor. I was in the world of poetry, you understand. Nobody told me the whole thing would be prose.

I suppose I was eager, even then, even as a little girl, for transformation. For transcendence. I look back on that little girl ... and see myself now. No change. No difference at all. I've just got a few more miles on me, that's all.

I wasn't sure how the Powers-that-Be were going to handle the challenge of getting all us Brownies up to a good height so that we wouldn't fall like stones when we leapt - but I was sure that SOMEONE would figure it out.

I was a bit ... stunned ... to see how few people were in attendance. I believe my mother was there ... and a couple of other mothers ... but it seemed to be a VERY thin crowd for such an extraordinary ceremony of transformation.

The reality did not match the magnitude in my mind. It was very disheartening.

I'll just say this, for those of you who were never Brownies, I'll tell you what the real thing is: The "flying up ceremony" is when each Brownie gets a small badge, a badge of two outstretched wings, pinned onto their sash. This wing-badge means: You are now a Girl Scout.

That's IT. That's all it was.

It had never been said to me: "You will get a wing-badge, and then you will make the Girl Scout vow, and then you will be a Girl Scout, and that is what the flying-up ceremony is all about."

They spoke in shorthand. "So, girls, when you fly up ..." "During the flying up ceremony..." "After you get your wings..." They assumed we knew the terms. I didn't have an older sister who would have clued me in a bit earlier. I was moving into unchartered waters.

And there I was, making up elaborate fantasies of Icarus wings, tables stacked on top of each other, little girls flying through the air of the Multi-Purpose Room, convincing myself that it would be okay if my wings were glittery and not feathery, and then looking forward to the day when said wings were crushed in a heap in my closet.

The ceremony began.

In a flash, when the first girl "flew up" and became a Girl Scout - the veil was pulled back from my eyes irrevocably. I saw the teeny wing-badge, I heard her say the Girl Scout vow, and then I saw her step aside to let the next person go - and I realized that that was it. That was it. That was all the "flying-up ceremony" was going to be.

Furtively, I glanced around the Multi-Purpose Room, hoping to see a big cardboard box ... I remember looking for that box ... the box that contained the REAL wings ... that they had ordered from some magical Brownie warehouse ...

but already I knew it wasn't there.

It was never there.

I went through my "flying up ceremony" with a huge smile on my face - I acted like I was really happy about my little wing-badge. I didn't want to show how much my heart had just cracked, how unbelievably disappointed I was, how grey the entire world suddenly became.

I hid my heart from everyone. I was immediately very ashamed of my fantasies. I was ashamed of my fantasies AS I said the Girl Scout vow. I felt stupid. Like - of course, everybody else knew what the "flying up ceremony" was going to be. I was the only one who didn't know. I was the only one who was devastated. Everybody else was giggling, and excited to be a Girl Scout. Inside - inside - I was crying with disappointment. I thought about the crushed wings in my closet, and felt a piercing mixture of longing, despair, and shame.

Where are my wings??? Where are my REAL wings?

There weren't going to be any wings, feathery or glittery. There would never be wings crumpled up in my closet.

There would be no transformation.

Oh, and here's a Coda:
The disillusion was complete. I only made it as a Girl Scout for a couple of months. I quit the day after we spent an entire meeting making duffel bags.

There ain't no poetry in duffel bags.

I was GONE.

It's not often that you have a photo of yourself at the very moment a dream dies.

You'd never know from looking at the picture that that is what is going on.

Good game face. Too good.

Posted by sheila