mrs-roboto's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On My Honor When I was six years old I became a Brownie with the Girl Scouts of America. I loved being a Brownie. It appealed to my need for recognition. Sew a button on a sweater, get a badge. Grow a flower from an avocado pit, get a badge. Bake a cake, get a badge, etc. By the end of year one, my sash was covered in little fabric patches which declared me the most Girl Scoutingest! I'd wear that sash everywhere. Restaurant, parties, doctors appointments, funerals - out with the sash! I slept with it right next to my bed and in the morning when I got up, I counted those badges to make sure no one had made off with any while I slept. Yes, I was the best Scout ever. I remember taking a test on the history of the Girl Scouts and acing it. I was so proud of myself. You see, I was always a good student at school but there was one girl I couldn't compete with, Aurora Fagan. Aurora was always a step or two ahead of me, consistently leaving me with second place and runner up ribbons in the science fair or the spelling bee. If I got a 100% on a test, she got 110% for answering a bonus question. If I memorized a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, she recited Chaucer. When I learned Chopsticks on the piano, she became a master classical violinist. Did I mention her aunt was Corazon Aquino? Yeah, that was a little more impressive than anything my family had to offer (my grandmother once wore Ella Fitzgerald's fur coat but that's a tale for another time). But Aurora was not a Girl Scout and so in that arena I stood as number one. Our grammar school would let us wear our scouting uniform on Wednesdays, our meeting day, and you can bet your bottom dollar I paraded by Aurora's desk as many times as I possibly could on those days showing off the badge I earned for "taking only photos and leaving only footprints" in the great outdoors or the one I got for learning to say hello in five different languages. Yep, when it came to Scouting, I was Little Miss Overachiever. I stayed with Scouting till the seventh grade when puberty began to hit and the energy originally filtered into my need to be number one at something was redirected toward preadolescent crushes (oh C. Thomas Howell, could I love you anymore - I have every picture from Teen Beat applied to my bedroom walls and I kiss each one nightly). Suddenly, I wanted cute clothes and make up and boys. Girl Scouts lacked badges for Best Kisser or Most Likely to Let You feel Her Up At The Movies. Time spent studying survival skills was replaced with games of Spin the Bottle and my rivalry with Aurora shifted to a jealousy of Christine Cunningham, who was developing faster than me. The sash was put way in the attic. Oaths were replaced with secret notes passed in class that professed my passion for Tom, Dick or Harry. Scouting became obsolete. Teen years brought angst and feelings of isolation. Crushes seemed silly, the boys I dug were dark and brooding and dangerous. I questioned authority, stopped showing up for class, and listened only to music you couldn't find on your FM dial. I forgot all about Scouting, creeds, badges, and even C. Thomas Howell. Then one day I went to a punk show at a small club in Brooklyn. It was a Sunday matinee and we were all standing about seeing and being seen but hardly socializing. It was unheard of to approach someone you didn't know and risk the utter humiliation of them not speaking back to you. So I stood with my group, smoking and looking tough. I was shocked when I was tapped on the shoulder by a girl with pillbox red hair. She looked vaguely familiar, like I knew her in a different life. I did. She was part of my Scouting Troop. We talked for a moment or two in hushed voices about old times and when she walked away I breathed a sigh of relief. We had a silent understanding that we would not reveal how we knew each other to anyone. There was a certain fear in both our eyes. The last thing I needed was to mess up my street cred with those Girl Scout skeletons and I could tell she wasn't too crazy about her friends getting wind of her sash wearing days either. The odd thing is here I am, fifteen years later, thinking about Scouting. The punk shows all blend into one (who was it I was seeing that day?) but Scouting stands apart from it. I am thinking about being a group leader for the Campfire Girls (can't do the Girl Scouts because I strongly oppose their policies as an adult) and everytime I tell someone they ask if I am serious. It seems I'm still a bit more of a pouty, dark teenager than a happy camper. But I remember those days as being simple, uncomplicated. It was before I knew too much, before I stopped caring, before I became overly sensitive, before I became self-depricating and sarcastic, before the dreaded teen years. And so it is that I'd like to be a part of something that speaks of those moments before girls know to beat themselves up or to wear masks and put up fronts. Who knows if I'd be good at this? I don't like real young children, and I don't especially enjoy squealing, but I like the idea of witnessing those days in others and maybe encouraging them to keep a bit of that wonder and possibility through the next phase of life. What do you think? 12:22 p.m. - 2003-06-26 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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