kids in the hall

When I was a kid, my very favorite place to be was in my room, snuggled away in a corner, with a book. If there was carob-chip trail mix, so much the better.

My favorite place as an adult is still my house, with a good book, although sadly, I haven't had carob products in an exceedingly long time.

In kindergarten, I had agoraphobia-like issues. It wasn't about school, because I loved school. My favorite part was standing at the teacher's desk and reading a book, I think about a dog. And I also loved the projector shows about dinosaurs (my favorite being Triceratops) , especially if I got to run the projector.

No, my agoraphobia issue stemmed with the hallway. Especially during winter, when you had to take off your hideous moon boots and put on your inside side shoes before you went inside the classroom, because moon boots weren't allowed in the cloak-room/classroom.

I used to panic, because my lack of hand-eye-coordination--a trait that would unfortunately follow me to adulthood--would have me inevitably removing the moon polyester/rubber boot shell from the polyester lining, leaving me stuck in a hallway with half a boot on, half a boot off while everyone else was inside, getting a jump start on eating paper paste and cutting out stars and hearts with blunted safety scissors! I must get inside that classroom! I must!

Sensing my destiny was somehow deeply intertwined with playing hopscotch on painted carpet and counting how many diamonds were indeed in the sky with Lucy, and feeling my chances at Ivy League entrance ebbing away by the second, I would often be near tears (somehow, I also sense a connection of my young neuroses to that of my adulthood fears).

I had a little friend back then, in the days when I was somewhat more popular with boys (which abruptly ended with formal schooling). His name was Moses, also adopted and Korean, and he would help me with my moon boots, and then we would go to class together.

We were friends with a girl named Andrea, who had an adopted Korean brother (notice a theme, here?) and all three of us could read in kindergarten, which made us academic superstars amongst six-year-olds, believe you me. Andrea could draw much better than I could, especially frogs, and I was secretely jealous of this talent.

Once, when the buses were late, Moses and I decided to walk home by ourselves. We stopped by the neighborhood golf course and re-enacted the day's reading, "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" because of the convenient hills and foot path over a brook, which was kind of like a bridge.

Any way, by the time we got home, our mothers' had nearly lost their minds in worry, because we were supposed to have been given the message by Dylan--also a classmate-to wait at school for them. Which we never got, because sometimes six-year-olds aren't very good at remembering important information to tell their other six-year-old classmates.

Being six at the time, we had no idea why they were so upset. The walk was fun! And an adventure!

Ah, youth.

I don't remember why I started down memory lane, probably to use the hallway/moon boot terror of my youth as a metaphor for going to work/a new job, but I'm glad I had a friend who helped me with my moon boots, because sometimes, that's all you really need.