Run Away LIttle Rabbit: The End of Classes at Crybaby Central

did i mention that i'm a crybaby?

i think some of you know that about me.  in fact, in one of our projects this year for Michael Swaine's Art 137 - Advanced Ceramics - class i think i pretty well depicted that, or at least dramatized that.  maybe more like reliving it.

but today, i had to run away.

run away little rabbit.  run until your logs just can't stand it.  run until you fall down in a big soppy mess of tears, because all your friends have gone away.

run away little rabbit is a story line i am working on for some future children's book i will write.

run away little rabbit is a line that someone said to me, as an enticement to enter into a conflict that i did not wish to participate in.  as it goes, my intuition was right on as i tried to avoid the conflict - hence the run away little rabbit.

my chinese horoscope sign is rabbit.  someone once told me it was more like rabbit-cat, depending on the animal that is used.

she knew my chinese horoscope animal when she said that to me.

it was aimed directly at me, in fact, as she coaxed me away from the doorway.

if only i had made it through the door.

but today, little rabbit had to run again.  run away because it was all over.  our class time together was through.

and i didn't want to say goodbye, blubbering uncontrollably, illogically weeping for the end of something that was only ending as it was scheduled to.

and life is full of ends, right?  like we were talking about in the hallway, one of you and i -- we referenced that old song from the late 90's -- 'every new beginning comes from other beginning's end...'

___________________________

well, that was last night.

and today, as finals continue, i told my mother about my sadness at the departure of our special class.  i told her it probably went back to Montessori school -- she said, "You were four years old!" - and i said yes, but it's something about experiencing a traumatic loss before the identity is formed.

Yes, when i was 'four' - i believed it to be a little later -- maybe when i was 5 or 6, but no, she must be right.  our group had traveled, i think, to the great city of Philadelphia for a trip to the Please Touch Museum -- i think -- i remember the ham sandwich and carrot sticks my mother had enclosed in my lunch for me that day.  i can still see it in slow motion, in pictures.  i ate beneath the staircase.  i don't know why that is so deeply etched in my memory.  but i have recollection of it every now and then.

we got back home to our small town, and the church where our Montessori program was held -- in the basement, a very special space -- i can still see it, too, and its layout, the colors.  the tasks we performed there, and the alphabet hanging on the wall are very clear.

but there, as i rode in a car, my first best friend was having a time that etched another kind of mark into her memory -- and into her visage.

my best friend at the time was Kristy Holcombe.  even now, i swear, i still just want to cry about it.  yup.  crybaby central, i tell you.  so, Kristy had taken a different car than me home.  so they beat us to the church.  when we got back, they were already gone.  maybe we got stopped in traffic, something kept us from being there at the same time.  and the story goes that Kristy went inside the building to get a drink of water.  when she came out, she was crossing the little driveway that leads to the attached small parking lot. 

just at that moment, some drunk bastard of a man in a speeding vehicle came around the backside corner of the church.  he was driving one of those late 70's gas guzzlers, maybe a type pf muscle car.

well, he hit Kristy.  her poor little body was caught under his car for at least twenty yards -- something completely horrific -- and she was rushed to Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania at the University of Pennsylvania -- lovingly referred to as 'CHOP' by those that interact with it.

when we arrived to the church, word spread quickly about what had happened.

i think maybe they didn't tell me right away.  i mean, how do you tell a child something like that?  oh, right, by the way, your best friend on the whole world was run over by some crazy asshole and she's in the hospital and you can't see her because you're not family.  right, and also, by the way, you'll never see her again because her recovery will take a very long time, and her face, right.  her face.  yeah, well, you'll never see what happened to her face for a long time because we'll keep her hidden away from you. 

but we're doing this for your own good.

even though she only lived like ten minutes away.

they made it seem like it was hours' of a drive.

i remember saying repeatedly that i wanted to go and see her.  not understanding why i couldn't go and visit her at the hospital.  stupid hospital rules.

so.

i didn't see her.

in fact, i never saw her again.

until we randomly ran into each other in the mall food court.  my mom, my brother, me.  her mom, her brother, she.

but we were strangers.  we didn't know each other anymore.  all the intimacy that we had shared as children -- was gone -- only a memory when we looked at each other quizzically, as we were approaching adolescence rapidly at the time, and the little bit of ourselves that we found familiar in each other was made uncomfortable by the long expanse of time that separated us.

so.  i think that has haunted me for a very long time.  i mean, come on.  i'm interested in long-term projects.  long-term relationships.  i am adverse to loss and abandonment.  and so, with school, even at the university level, i feel all these things.  maybe others do not, but i do.

i mean, i may be wrong.  please tell me if i am wrong, because i love to be wrong.  it means that i am learning something about the world.

and so, even though the separation is built into the schedule, my heart doesn't really understand that at all.  i go on and invest in the relationship-building style that my heart says to, and then we're just supposed to say goodbye like nothing special happened.

and so, yeah.  last night, the little rabbit ran away, because --

 well, i love you all.

and i am sad that we won't see each other anymore. 

so, i guess, all you have to do is remember me getting all choked up on our walk down Telegraph, and shedding tears like i was a llama molting.   only my tears are less furry.

does that even make sense?  no?  crickets?

i have this running joke -- about my ability to try and crack jokes that really aren't funny -- i am going to collect these jokes -- and make arrangements to tell these jokes in an auditorium.  i will bring with me about 100,000 or ten or however many crickets they will sell me.  i will fill the auditorium with crickets.  i will proceed to get onstage with my mic, and my outfit, and with the video guys doing their thing.  i will tell my jokes, and there will be silence.  and i'll say:

"what?  crickets?"