Incomplete

In second grade, we do a lot of writing. Most kids will probably write every word of the chumash at least five times in three languages before they get promoted. But I stink at writing. I can barely even read the stuff to copy and I never, ever finish in time. So I get lots of homework. The probem is that by the time I get home I'm so burnt out from copying all day that it hurts to even think about more work.

Later, much much later, I will learn that handwriting is hard because of muscle tone and motor coordination issues, and copying is even harder because of vision tracking problems. Or something like that. But right now I'm just slow and worn out, and my parents fight a losing battle every night. I don't need treats or threats, I just want a break.

So every morning I come back to school with only a few more lines done. And every morning the teacher checks the notebooks at our desks, one at a time, and stops by mine to put a big red X at the top and yell "Incomplete!" and her voice echoes in my ears for a while.

Years later, I will find an old notebook in the back of my closet. It is crammed, cover to cover, margin to binding, with stodgy, seven-year-old script. It has red checks, too, on several pages between each Incomplete. I can't understand why or how they got there, because I know I have always been an awful kid who never did her work.

Could it be that I achieved something after all? And surely we must have done something that year besides copy lines? I guess I will never know, because the only memory I have is a shrill, ringing echo...

INCOMPLETE!