ghosts in the daylight
We drive until there is no name for the road, just two dirt ridges that disappear into the forest. V is dressed all in white, and we spy some of her friends from art school in the same - ghosts in the daylight, spotless and glowing.
Their drawings and paintings hang from makeshift lines tied from tree to tree, held in place with clothespins. As usual, V plays a game with me as I try to pick out which ones are hers. She tests me, at all times.
The sun is wild and hot, and bugs are circling my arms. I cannot remember the last time I was surrounded by trees. Stuck in an endless cycle of work and sleep, even walking to buy some tomatoes can feel like a venture into the unknown. This is so much more.
Beyond the tree line, the whole city sprawls out below us, lines of pale blue teeth, dust and grit, car exhaust and thin clouds. We are above it all, as the pines bend in a low wind and almost talk to each other.
The field fills with children in white, and parents who carry portable chairs, plopping into them and slurping from cold cans of beer. There are bowls of cherries and strawberries to pick at. And then it is time for the parade, or maybe more of a procession.
Each child has built their own costume. Some create a sort of headpiece, others make an architectural balancing act. They were told to create something from nature, be it a version of a butterfly or a wood nymph, something fantastical or something mundane. I have a bag of cameras with me, not sure what situation I would be walking into, and soon they hang from my neck in a spaghetti tangle of straps. One has color film in it, the other two black and white. One shoots squares, another wide cinematic frames. It is my odd homework to try to nail something down here, as the sun cooks the back of my neck, and the children march in that perfect awkward way, one by one, as the crowd croons and the birds flap around. The smell of dew drying on the grass, of pine needles, and wildflowers wraps around us. And then it is over as quickly as it came together. V gives her makeshift crown to N, who wears it well. It is time to go home slowly on narrow twisting roads.
I was in Montessori school, when I was about 4 and we still lived in Brooklyn. There was a lot of fuss about costumes, and being original, and pouring juice into cups without spilling it. I had a huge crush on one teacher, a Swedish woman with long, straight blonde hair. I tried to win her over with tiny boxes of Sun Maid raisins. It was a plan, however flawed.
It is hard to say exactly how my time in Montessori shaped my life. I have crossed paths with other people that went to one, and we do have a shorthand, an immediate shared understanding of certain things that is truly uncanny. The thing I remember more than the fun and joy was the pressure, the voice in your head saying “you are not being special enough.”
Everyone has their cockroaches, as the expression goes.
Once we are home, the all-white outfit is retired, and V slumps into a nap, curled up in a mountain of covers. She knows this sleep too, the aftermath of the big day, that slack-jawed snoring, that cheek pressed hard on the pillow.
The photograph is haunting. So wildly pagan. If you feel, or ever felt, not special enough, it was that you were too special. The academy hates it when you embody what they cannot teach.
That's an amazing picture. I think they should have done this in the moonlight.
You are special, so I think it worked. I will have to copy that and share it with my son, though. He thinks that I made him feel that way; maybe it was Montessori (which he loved, I thought.)