Davening: Grade 2

Every day during davening, I wait for the marker to land on my desk. If you get a marker, that means you were davening nicely and after davening you get to color in a space on your chart. Every time you finish a chart, you get a prize. Leah already got her first prize, a siddur keychain with her name on it. It's so cute that it made me want to finish my chart more than ever.

I don't know why I almost never get markers. I try so hard. I look in my sidur and don't fool around. The teacher says I have to sing louder and together with the class, but when I try my lips stumble over the words and they come out all wrong. And the girls go so fast I can't keep up. I don't think they're even really saying the words, it's impossible. But when I ask them to slow down they look at me like I'm crazy and then I get in trouble for shouting out during davening.
So I start off every day trying to sing along, then end up mumbling trying to keep up, then lose my voice and the class completely. Sometimes I get a marker, but not very often, and I'm not sure what the difference is when I get it or not so I don't really know how to get more.

At the end of the year, some girls are finishing their second or third charts, and I am almost finished my first but not quite there yet. The teacher calls me to her desk after class and dangles a blue siddur keychain with my name in gold. I want it, I want it, I want it! She tells me she knows I've been trying and I can have this now. I look at my chart and the four empty spaces, and I know it isn't true. I throw the keychain back on her desk and leave the room. I never see her or such a pretty keychain again.

Davening: Kindergarten

Davening is an essential fixture in every Bais Yaakov schedule, even before we learn to read. I basically enjoy it and sing along much of the time. My mother never forgets to pack some coins for tzedakah in my backpack, so I always have something to contribute. Overall, it's a rather relaxing routine and quite conducive to spacing out. As the repetitive rhythm of the prayers buzzes in my ears, in my mind I see an endless corridor with rhythmically spaced arches. The arches pass in time to the beat, their beauty magnified by subtle lighting effects. I have no idea what the words are to this song my class sings but it doesn't matter, my visualization is soothing and all mine. It is probably my earliest memory of creating art - though I could never draw the image, I will still be able to visualize it clearly over ten years later.

Welcome? Who, me?

I'm terrified of the high school entrance exams. I've heard of girls not getting accepted anywhere and I'm just positive that I will be one of them. They don't even need the exams; they can see from my report cards that I'm a flop. But I've been trying really hard lately and I really have no choice, so I put one foot in front of the other and stick really close to the other girls from my eighth-grade class.

When we finally reach the high school doors, it starts feeling more exciting than frightening. Girls dash purposefully to and fro everywhere, their uniforms so much more sophisticated than our elementary ones. Everything is different, new, maybe here I can finally start fresh, where no one knows me.

I sweat through pages and pages of test, blanking out a lot but writing things anyway. Guessing wherever there's a choice. Rambling on to fill up the essay page, how wrong could that be! Finally it's over and my mother's here to drive us home. She comes inside to offer my sister a ride home, but she's not ready to leave yet. Meanwhile I listen to my classmates comparing notes with mounting dread -- were we even taking the same test?!

As we head out, an important-looking fellow greets my mother with a huge smile.
"Well, what's this? Another daughter! What a pleasure, any daughter of yours is welcome here!" This man who will no doubt be my principal next year goes on for another few minutes (years?) about how great my sister is and how wonderful it will be to have another one of her. In fact, they're thinking of making her a chessed head next year because she's so nice and helpful besides for being such a fabulous student. And they're sure they can expect great things from me, too.

When we're finally released, the fear is gone. And so is the excitement of starting clean.

The Choice

At fifteen, I consider going off the derech. I'm not particularly enjoying my lifestyle as it is, and I think I would fit in much better among the "cool" kids. I'm not outstanding at all right now, but maybe that would make them pay attention and start caring about me. At the very least it would show them how much I'm hurting, and maybe they'll learn a lesson. And besides, I really do wonder what it would be like to be someone different.

I do a little cost-to-benefit comparison and end up just about equally drawn in both directions. Then I ponder what would happen if I made the wrong decision:
If I stay frum and in five years I realize I've made a mistake and there's nothing here after all, I can stop right then. A few more years down the drain, but not such a big deal.
If I go off and in five years I realize I've made a mistake, I will have lost all my old friends, estranged my parents, and nobody will want to marry me. My name would be tainted forever.

On that basis, I decide to go with the program, at least until I can figure out what the best path for me really is. It feels like a solid decision, purely logical. I feel a surge of pride -- who would have expected this from the girl known for impulsivity and poor judgment?

It still isn't fun to be a nobody in the frum world, but my mind is at peace because I know I've made the smartest decision of my life so far.

Tickle Torture

Fingers come at me from all sides, poking, jabbing everywhere. I scream at them to stop and inside I'm crying, but I can't get out the tears because my mouth is smiling, gasping, letting out shreiks of pain that sound like laughter. STOP! STOP! I yell as loud as I can but I can barely even hear my own voice and no one else seems to.

Along with the pokes come taunts. They tease me about being so ticklish. Am I really especially ticklish? Is there something wrong with me? I can't help it! Who can tell, they never really do this to anyone else. And these are not tickles anyway, tickles are soft and fluttery, not poking and hurting. I can feel my skin bruising under their jabbing fingers.

How long can this go on? It feels like every day but surely they must get bored of it sometimes... It's been months, I think. Maybe years. Maybe forever.

When they don't listen to my cries for peace, I finally break down and tell the teacher, begging her for help. She doesn't seem to believe me. Crying over tickling? In sixth grade?! Who ever heard of such a silly thing? She tells me things I've heard before, about how I should be less sensitive and stand up for myself. She doesn't understand that it's impossible. Why am I the one who has to change? They say big girls don't cry so much -- well I say big girls should keep their big hands off of other people.

But what I say doesn't matter. I can't control my laughter. I can't protect my body. My voice is not heard. My opinions don't exist. My wants mean nothing. Eventually the other girls grow up and the tickling stops, but this becomes me.