Steps.

Steps. Nonfiction Workshop, 2004ish.

One foot in front of the other. There you go. Left, right –

“Chink!”

Left, right, left – before I could take my next step, I found myself falling face first into the floor.

* * *

Ugly, clunky Payless sandals. Unstylish, too-short jeans. Oversized sweatshirts. At twelve, all I wanted to do was belong. I sure as hell couldn’t walk in those sandals, but I wore them anyway. Middle school was a time of big feet, geekiness, and insecurities. My mother still sent me to school in an ugly pink dress for picture day back then, and I had the trademark hairstyle of the eighties: big bangs and a ponytail secured by a scrunchie. I got labeled teacher’s pet because I was always the first kid chosen to get a Pepsi out of the vending machine for them during class. But I wasn’t good at anything worth being good at according to my classmates. Sports. Friends. Looks. Life. Normalcy.

* * *

Since the day I considered myself “Americanized,” my most vivid memory of stories I’ve been told remains the day my older brother, Mike, asked Mom and Dad “Can we send her back to the airport?” At one and a half, I had the typical fat-head syndrome and growing up in a family where I’ve often been considered the source of comic relief, moments like these were not uncommon. I sort of shrugged off their silly comments.

Since becoming a member of the states, I’ve been a Michigan resident. My family has lived in the heart of Teacherville forever, which fits I guess. My parents, who have beat their teaching certificates to death, think they know everything. I have friends who agree. They’ll say things like, “Dude, your dad created the universe!” My mom is an overworked and underpaid elementary music teacher who, if secretly recorded at two o’clock in the morning can be heard rambling excessive and incoherently, snoring, and singing bits and pieces of songs from Annie, Get Your Gun.

My brothers and I have this awkward relationship. We rarely talk to each other. Mike is too busy cleaning carpets and taking classes at the nearby community college, what he calls the Harvard of the Midwest, and Will occupies most of his time snowboarding or hanging out at the nearby country western bar. The only thing we shared growing up and took seriously was playing soccer. My mother proudly sported the Soccer Mom sweatshirts and those damn pins with our pictures on them to work.

I’ve never considered myself very socially able. Becoming acquainted with people in elementary school was easy. All I had to do was lend my periwinkle crayon to the kid sitting next to me. Middle school consisted of facing classmates who had something to prove: they were assholes. I finally interacted with a few people I could call friends during high school. As borderline social outcasts and the epitome of goody goodies who didn’t party, we weren’t usually the first invited to the big social gatherings. Instead, we typically bowled, watched movies, ate popcorn, played Taboo, and had sleepovers. I played Hostess.

But none of that really mattered. I was still destined to be ridiculed by the world’s cruel bastards.

* * *

Most mornings, I’d stumble up the stairs at school in my platform sandals and my oversized sweatshirt, left, right, left, right down the hall, notice a snickering group of classmates crowded around my locker, and stop. They’d spot me, and quickly split in opposite directions down the hall. Those stupid bastards. I already knew what I’d find. Typically, I approached a mess of photographs from ripped magazines, mostly of poor or homeless Asians plastered all over what I called my locker. Offended, but usually more pissed and embarrassed, I’d bolt for the bathroom and kick open the stall door. Sometimes I contemplated locking myself there for a while with my tears and toilet paper.

* * *

Back in the hallway, I trudged along in my size eight-and-a-halfs a little faster. People gawked at me, as if seeing someone walk to class was the most interesting thing they’d ever seen. It kinda made me feel like a zoo exhibit. I stared at my feet and minded my own business so I didn’t have to look at anyone. Mostly, I just wanted to avoid embracing the floor again.

As the classroom door approached my sight, I thought I was safe.

“Hey Emily.” Shit. “Where’s your green card?”

I didn’t slow down to acknowledge him. I just headed straight for the classroom, pretending that his comment was directed at someone else. Sure.

After class, the stupid kid handed me a piece of paper.

“Hey, here’s your green card,” he said. I glanced down at the ‘green card’ that his dumb ass had crafted out of paper and markers. No big deal, I’ll just go die now. Of course I wanted my fist to have a serious encounter with his face, but more than that, I wanted to disappear. What could my comeback possibly be at this point? Uh…where’s yours? Is there a card that excuses ignorant idiots? Nah. I just took it as my cue to hibernate some more.

Back to the bathroom. Left right, left –

“I chink I know you, but I might be wong.”

I gave him the finger…right, left, right.

* * *

Eight years later, I spotted a familiar face at a friend’s band gig. He ran toward me with open arms and said, “Emily! I haven’t seen you in so long.”

I hugged him back and said, “I know.” I still refer to him as the Green Card Kid.

Vacancy.

Vacancy. Nonfiction Workshop, 2004ish.

“Where the hell are we?” I flicked my cigarette out the window and turned down the radio.

Molly inspected the outdated compass ball attached to the dashboard of the Buick. “Apparently we’re going northwest,” she said.

“Actually…we’re not. That thing is broken,” I said.

“Oh great. Your mom’s piece of shit car is helping us out a lot today,” Sam said, leaning over the front seat and snatching the map from Molly’s hands. Every time Sam moved, the smell of sunscreen lotion radiated throughout the car, nearly gagging us all. I rolled the window down as far as it would go.

“No! Roll the window back up, it’s too cold,” she said.

“Then why are you wearing so much sunscreen?” Molly scrounged one more time through her soccer bag for the hand-written directions her dad had given her before the game. “Damn, I sure wish I could find those directions.”

“Molly, zip up your bag. It smells like feet in here.”

“Well, if we have a map, we shouldn’t need directions,” I said. “All we need to do is go west and we’ll run into the beach sooner or later.”

“Yeah, but if we wanna know which way west is, we have to figure out which way we’re going now,” said Sam, sighing loudly.

I looked in the rear-view mirror at the red Sundance following me. Boy, I bet they’d hate me right now if they knew where we were. Hell, I wish I knew where we were. Nicole and Alex were bouncing up and down, clearly singing along with the radio. Obviously they had no idea that I’d gotten us completely lost.

“We’ve been driving for an hour and it’s already 3:30,” Sam said. “We should just pull off somewhere and ask for directions.”

I stopped at the corner and read the street sign. I looked around for signs of life, but we were the only two cars on the entire stretch of road.

Sam squinted at the map and said, “Turn left.”

I hesitated for a minute, then said, “Won’t that take us in a circle?”

“No, trust me. Go left,” she said.

Nicole honked her horn behind me. I turned left.

* * *

Eighteen seconds to go. I stood near the goal post and waited for the corner kick. We were down by five. I really didn’t care, though. It felt weird to play soccer on a Saturday, and all I wanted was for us to hurry up and lose so we could start our weekend.

The buzzer sounded, and the other team gathered in the center of the field to squeal and scream. We trudged off the field and sat down on the sideline for the coach’s routine talk. God, I hated staring at his stupid moustache every day.

“Ladies, you’ve had a phenomenal season and you played well today. Being your coach this year has been a pleasure and I hope you come back to play again next spring. All right, I can tell you’re all anxious to get out of here, so go out and enjoy the rest of your Saturday. Monday, we’ll meet after school to turn in uniforms.”

Nicole and I took off our shin-guards and cleats. “Do you think it’s too cold for the beach?” she asked.

“No way. We’ve been planning this all season. We have to go.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Okay, just let me go get the car keys from my mom. As long as she doesn’t give me the third degree, I’ll meet you guys in the parking lot in five minutes,” she said.

“Okay,” I said.

On the way out of the stadium, I heard my dad say, “Don’t get lost.”

* * *

“What is she doing?” Nicole said. “She keeps slowing down and swerving all over the place.”

“She’s probably trying to listen to the radio and talk at the same time.” Alex laughed at her own joke.

“It sure is taking us a while to get there. I thought my mom said it would only take us about forty-five minutes. It’s been longer than that.”

“Molly said she knew how to get there. That’s why she’s “navigating” our trip,” Alex said, making air quotes with her fingers. “We’ll get there eventually. How hard can it be?”

Then it happened. Nicole slammed on her brakes, but to no avail. The front end of her tin-can toy car crashed right into the bumper of my Buick on the corner of the street. Alex jolted forward, and let out a high-pitched scream. I pulled over onto the side of the road and got out of the car.

“Oh man. Nicole is gonna kill you,” Molly said, turning around. She watched Nicole pull over behind me and open the door. “I can’t watch.”

“Colleen! What were you doing? My mom is gonna kill me,” Nicole said, flailing her arms in the air. I stepped out of the car and walked toward her.

“I’m sorry. I had too many people navigating and I had to make a quick decision.” I said.

“Isn’t Molly supposed to navigate? Listen to her, duh,” Nicole said, glaring at Sam.

“Okay, will you guys stop saying the word navigate?” Alex said. “It makes you sound like idiots.”

I looked up and down the street for a car, a house, a store, a highway, a cute boy…anything. Nope, just trees, road-kill, and ditches. Damn. The girls bickered among themselves while I thought of a way to get us out of this mess.

“Okay, why don’t we just get back in the car and go straight. We have to eventually run into a main road. And when we get there, we’ll ask for directions. Deal?”

“All right,” Nicole said. “Let’s go.”

* * *

“Hey, I’ve seen that church before,” said Molly, pointing ahead at the steeple.

I narrowed my eyes. I thought it looked familiar too, but I knew I’d never actually been to a church, let alone this one. Then it hit me. “Oh my god you guys.”

“What?” Sam asked.

“The reason you’ve seen this church before is because we passed it about an hour ago. We went in a circle!”

“Does anyone else want to navigate?” Molly asked, tossing the map over her shoulder and into the back seat.

“Pull into the church parking lot and we’ll try to figure this out. This time, don’t crank the wheel so hard,” Sam said.

We piled out of the car again. Alex walked over and said, “Too bad it isn’t Sunday. Maybe we could ask the priest for directions.”

“Maybe we should just go home. We can just go to the beach another day,” Nicole said. I had almost forgotten how excited I was to go to the beach.

“Yeah but which way is home? None of us have any idea,” Molly said.

“Come on you guys, where’s your sense of adventure? This is the only good thing that comes out of being sixteen. We can drive wherever we want to,” Alex said. She has a point, I thought.

“Okay, back in the car guys.”

* * *

Finally. Other cars. It had been a good half hour since the church parking lot, but seeing other cars gave me hope. I rolled the window down. Maybe I’d be able to smell the beach. The sun was disappearing behind the trees quickly and the breeze sent chills through my body.

“Hey, what does that say,” Sam asked, pointing to the brown sign on the right side of the road. I smiled at Molly and got in the right lane. Nicole followed, honking her horn freely. Alex hung her head out the window and waved her arms around in the air.

* * *

“Brrr, this is freezing,” Molly said. She dipped her toe into the water. The waves were crashing violently against the shore. As the sun started to disappear behind the water, it painted a vibrant red circle on the pink horizon. I looked around and realized that the place was completely vacant. I kind of liked it, though. I felt it was a good spot for us to start expressing our independence.

Alex ignored Molly’s warning and jumped in. Sam, Nicole, and I joined Molly and dipped our toes in, too.

“Get in you guys.” Alex was standing at the sandbar waiting for waves to ride.

We held our breath. “One…two…three.”

* * *

It had been forty-five minutes. We were sitting in a Taco Bell parking lot waiting for Nicole and Alex. My goal at that point was just to make it home before dark.

“I still can’t believe they went the other way,” Molly said. I couldn’t believe it either. As we were leaving the beach, Nicole insisted that we had starting off going the wrong way. Our third car conference led to the splitting of the Buick from the Sundance. “I still think we should turn around and go find them.”

“Let’s just wait. They said they’d be here,” I said.

“Yeah, but they also said they knew a faster way to get here.” Sam was looking down the street for any sign of the little red car. I started to worry that they were more lost than we were. We sat for another half an hour on the curb, hoping to flag them down if they drove past. The guys at the oil change place next to the Taco Bell were staring and whistling at us.

“Here they come,” Molly said, standing up. She walked out near the street and waved her hands furiously as the Sundance passed by. Nicole turned around in the oil change parking lot and pulled up next to us.

She rolled her window down. “Let’s go back to getting lost together.”

We piled into the Buick for what we hoped would be the last time that day. Molly switched on the radio and I lit a cigarette. Interrupting our rendition of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, Nicole’s Sundance pulled into the other lane and rode next to us. Alex pressed a piece of white paper against the window. I squinted and mouthed the word “What?” at them and she motioned for me to roll my window down.

“I have to pee!” she said. They sped in front of me and pulled over onto the side of the road. I drove up behind them and got out of the car. Sam and Molly exchanged confused glances and got out too.

“Where are you going to pee?” I asked.

“In the ditch,” Alex said. “Hey, Nicole. Go grab your towel.”

I could only imagine how crazy we looked standing in a ditch in our bikinis at night in the fifty degree May weather. Cars were passing now. Random people honked and yelled obscenities out their windows.

Nicole retrieved a towel from the backseat of her car. She walked down the grassy slope and said, “Now what?”

“Hold it in out front of me while I pee.”

Don't Look. Just Dive.

Don't Look. Just Dive. Fiction Workshop, 2005ish.

“Bitch.”

Drew stifled his laughter as I glared at the red-head whose flailing arms and eyes were set on the limp cardboard box.

“Oh get over it, Jane. Would you have honestly paid seventy-five cents for plastic Chinese lanterns with gaping holes and cobwebs on them?”

“Shut up,” I said, brushing the dust off the corner of the shelf where the box had been sitting. I pretended to pout for another minute until I was interrupted by giggling.

I looked up to find small girl tugging at her mother’s skirt and pointing at Drew who had tied a pink and yellow polka-dotted scarf on his head and was now strutting in front of the row of full-length mirrors batting his eyelashes. The girl squealed once more as her mother rolled her eyes and escorted her out the thrift shop door.

“Drew, that’s gross. Who knows where that scarf has been.”

“Lighten up, I’m just trying to have fun,” he said, removing the scarf.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”

It took me a minute to catch my breath as we stepped onto the windy sidewalk outside. The overcast sky hung low and the street lights swung violently through the damp September air. The bus stop was more crowded than usual that day.

“Look at all of these people. I guess we’ll just have to wait for the next one,” I said.

“Nah…we can squeeze in there. You’re small and I can just stand.”

“You know I hate crowded places. I always feel like everyone’s looking at me funny. There’s no way I’m getting on that bus.”

“You’re so weird,” said Drew.

We watched as the bus pulled up. I stood on my tiptoes and strained my neck to see over the crowd.

An old man who’d been sitting on the bus stop bench reading the paper nearly toppled to the ground when a slender woman in high heels made a mad dash for the bus, her little black bag flailing from side to side behind her. As she jerked her way through the crowd, a stocky man in a business suit who was trying to juggle four coffees lost his balance and spilled them all over the woman’s white blouse.

“This is ridiculous. Why don’t we just walk home,” Drew said as he watched the bus drive off, leaving a handful of angry people tossing their arms up in the air. I could only see their mouths moving. The honking horns and speeding cars drowned out their petty chatter. Rush hour bumper-to-bumper bullshit.

“You’re kidding right? That’s like twelve blocks. Besides, it’s going to start pouring any minute now,” I said.

“That’s even better. I love it when it rains on a warm day. Come on,” Drew said. He grabbed my hand and yanked me down the sidewalk.

“Ok, ok, I’m coming. Let go of my hand,” I said, rolling my eyes at him. I withdrew my sweaty palm as I felt my cheeks growing red. I turned away from him, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

The clouds caved in over the street more and more the further we got from the thrift shop. The street lights flickered and the brisk wind sent my shin stubble poking into my jeans.

“Great, that’s a comforting sign. Did you see that?”

I looked over at Drew, who was staring ahead in oblivion and whistling. My heart was fluttering a mile a minute, yet I was somehow comforted by Drew’s ability to make light of most situations. Still, I was scared shitless.

“Oh my god. We’re about to die and you’re whistling.”

“Yeah, because obviously if we flip out, the storm will go away. We’re not going to die, stupid,” Drew said.

I gave him a shove. He stumbled into the street, just in front of a pair of headlights. The car swerved as it came within inches of Drew’s ankles and laid on the horn. The piercing sound only added to my irritation.

“Hey, thanks. That was awesome. I’m glad you were here while I experienced my first brush with death. But just for fun, how about giving me a warning before you shove me into oncoming traffic again.” Drew was laughing now, and I was getting annoyed.

“How can you make a joke about that?” I asked.

“And how can you have no sense of humor?”

Before I could answer, a bolt of lightning illuminated the street. Its instantaneous flash was bright enough for me to see Drew’s eyes grow wide. My lifeless fingers grabbed his arm and I cringed when the thunder that followed brought a sudden downpour of rain. Within seconds, Drew’s brown hair was flattened against his forehead and I could feel water squishing around in my sneakers with each step.

“Hey, wanna go to the park?” Drew asked.

“Hey, have you lost your mind? We’ve walked nine blocks, and now you want to turn around and go back into town so we can play in a park?”

The rain hit the pavement with force that made it seem as if it were raining upside-down. The streets were dark and completely empty now. The only source of light was the glare from the pooled water around our ankles. It had been blocks since we’d seen any people and now the cars were few and far in-between.

“Fine, but we’re already soaked,” Drew said, “can we at least play in the puddles?”

“What puddle? The entire street is a puddle.”

Another bolt of lightning split the sky in two, and I stared in disbelief at the steadily rising water in the street. Drew looked at me and smiled, then pushed me. I landed flat on my ass, and the water around me created a wave that splashed up into my face. I frowned, hoping to show him that I wasn’t in the mood for playing.

“You asshole,” I said as I stood up and wrung my shirt out. By the time I had wiped the water off of my face and out of my eyes, Drew was on the ground too. I looked down to see him laughing and splashing around in the water.

“Grow up,” I said. “Let’s just go home.”

*

“What happened to you, kid?”

“Drew didn’t want to wait for the next bus.” I said, shrugging my shoulders.

Mom laughed as I walked past her and up the stairs to my bedroom. I stripped down and changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt. The storm was letting up and fog started rolling in. I opened the window to let the humid breeze in and the smell of stale smoke out.

I walked over to the walk-in closet and switched on the Christmas lights lining the walls inside. Damn, those Chinese lanterns sure would have been looked pretty sweet in here. I sprawled out on top of a pile of clothes and lit a joint. I stared blankly at the ceiling in the closet as I blew a stream of smoke at it.

I can’t stand Drew when he acts like a five year old. Why am I even friends with him? He has no common sense, he’s always making terrible jokes, and he likes shitty movies. I always end up in a fucked-up situations when I agree to go somewhere with him, too. Like today. Jesus Christ, who laughs about almost dying?

The Christmas lights gave off a hazy glow from the smoke as I blew it around, watching it spiral around inside the closet. My wet hair had dampened the t-shirt I was laying on and my cold toes still looked like prunes. I stood up to open the closet door. I was halfway out when my foot got tangled in the hood of one of my sweatshirts by the closet door. I lost my balance and came crashing down, face first, onto the wooden floor.

“Son of a bitch,” I said as I removed a sharp object that had jabbed into my stomach and held it out in front of me. It was a CD case, now with an artistic crack spreading from the center. I opened the case, and found a burned CD on which I had written “rites of passage: porn, lotto tickets, and cigarettes”. Well shit, here it is. See, I have a sense of humor. Don’t I? Oh well, maybe for his nineteenth birthday. I put the CD back into its case and threw it into the closet on top of the pile of clothes.

*

The storm started up again before I got in bed that night. I lay there, replaying the day in my head. I smiled as I pictured Drew in the polka-dotted scarf. I thought about what I would have done if Drew had been hit by the car. God, I’m a bitch. People just don’t push their best friends into oncoming traffic. I toyed with the idea of playing outside in the rain. Then I pictured myself kissing Drew. Stop it, I told myself.

My eyes soon grew heavy and I fell asleep quite easily, as I usually did during thunderstorms. I was jolted awake around 2 A.M. by thunderous booms outside my window.

I got up and used the bathroom before going downstairs to help myself to the steak leftovers that I’d missed at dinner. Outside, the lightning was brighter than I’d ever seen before. I gawked out the window as I put my steak in the microwave.

I hopped up onto the counter and flipped on the TV across the room while I ate my steak. With the window right behind me, I could see the reflection of the lightning on the TV. I stopped chewing when I noticed a flash of light blocked by a shadow. I jumped down from the counter and turned off the kitchen light. I pressed my nose up against the glass and tried to see through the waterfall of rain clinging to the window. Just as I was about to shrug it off and go back to bed, Drew popped his head up in front of the window. He knocked on it and motioned for me to come outside.

I opened the front door and said, “What are you doing here?” Drew stood in front of me drenched from head to toe.

“Because thunderstorms at night are just plain sweet. You’ll see. Come on.” Drew grabbed my hand and hurled me outside. My other hand, still on the doorknob, slammed the door shut as we bounded into the pouring rain. Drew let go of my hand and ran down the driveway, then around in circles through the front yard, deliberately stomping in puddles as he went. I stared at him in awe. Why was he embarrassing me like this? I looked back at the house to make sure no one was watching us. When I realized we were alone, I relaxed a little.

“Come on!” he said. I started to walk away from the house, still glancing up every time I saw lightning just to make sure it wasn’t close enough to kill me. I could barely see Drew through the wind and rain. I picked up a frisbee that lay on the front lawn and threw it at him. I missed, but it caught him off-guard enough that he slipped on the wet grass. When he stood up, he was covered in mud. I giggled.

From the opposite side of the yard he said, “Isn’t this fun?”

“I guess so,” I said. I stomped my feet in the puddles beneath me.

“Hey, go stand over there,” Drew said, pointing toward the front porch. “No, not there. Yeah, right there. Okay, now start running and dive into the grass to see how far forward you can slide. It’s a lot more fun than you’d think.”

“No way. That’s dumb,” I said, biting my lip.

“Nah, you gotta try it.”

“Okay, fine. But if this turns out to be totally stupid, I get to go back inside and go to bed.” My bare feet were sinking between the muddy blades of grass as I walked back toward the front porch. I looked up at Drew who was holding his arms open toward the sky, squinting and scrunching his nose as the rain flowed down his chin.

This is ridiculous, I thought as I took off. My feet sunk deeper into the mud with each step, and I started to get grossed out. I looked at the ground for a patch of grass not drenched in mud. Don’t look, just dive. I closed my eyes hard and dove for the ground. I could feel mud splashing up all around me and seeping its way into my sweatpants. Once my body stopped moving, I opened my eyes and stood up. A wide strip of grass was flattened where I slid, and there was a deep impression about ten feet ahead where I had stopped.

Drew, who’d been watching, laughed at me as I wiped the mud out of my eyes. We walked over to the driveway and sat down on the cement.

“I can’t believe you talked me into that,” I said as I wrung mud out of my hair.

“You know you wanted to do it. Didn’t it make you feel alive?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But, now I have chunks of mud lodged places in my pants and between my toes.” I scraped a chunk of grass and mud off of my foot and wiggled it off my fingers and into Drew’s lap.

“See, at least now you know what that feels like.”

“Yeah, because it’s something I’ve always dreamed about.”

“So you admit it,” he said.

“Why are you always so persistent with me?” I asked.

“Because you need some excitement in your life. Start with little stuff, like puddle jumping.”

I smiled. I could feel my face getting warm. I bit my lip, trying to wipe away my smile. Drew leaned toward me and wiped a strand of hair out of my eye. Oh my god, is he going to kiss me?! I felt my palms start to sweat.

“Hey, I really should go back to bed,” I said, standing up.

“Okay, I guess you’re right.” Drew stood up too. He hugged me and said, “See ya tomorrow, Jane.”

“Hey, don’t leave yet. I’ll be right back.” I said as I shook off as much mud and water as I could before letting myself back into the house. I ran up the stairs, leaving a trail of mud behind me. Oh boy, mom is gonna be pissed in the morning. I walked into my room, caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and smiled when I realized how silly I looked. Okay, now where is that stupid CD? I dug through the pile of clothes in the closet, tossing everything aside until I found it.

Drew was standing by the front door when I came back downstairs. I opened the door and poked my head out.

“What?” he asked. I handed him the cracked CD case.

“Happy Birthday.”

*

“Hey, what’s up?” I asked the next day after school.

“Oh nothing. Just on my way to the store. Wanna come?”

“Sure, but let’s take the bus home afterwards this time,” I said. Drew pretended to look disappointed, but nodded in agreement.

“What are we going to the store for? A pink and yellow polka-dotted scarf?” I said, batting my eyelashes.

“Haha, no. Actually, the things I want to buy aren’t at the thrift shop,” he said, turning down an unfamiliar street.

“What could you possibly need in here?” I asked, looking in through the window.

“Oh not much. Just porn, lotto tickets, and cigarettes.”

Empty Glasses

Empty Glasses. Nonfiction Workshop, 2004ish.

There goes the moped army. They pass by the Fourth Coast Café windows in a blur, their silhouettes illuminated momentarily by the neon lights of the tattoo parlor. Staggered and swerving through the downtown streets, their tires leave wavy stripes in the snow. It’s 1:30am as they parade from coffee houses to bars to student ghetto house parties to who knows where. They raise hell in the heart of Kalamazoo.

We gathered here in the ghetto for a cup of coffee, or whatever cliché association people tie to ‘going out for a cup of coffee:’ catching up with old friends, gossiping, people watching, purchasing a beverage of some kind – sometimes coffee, sometimes not.

On any given occasion, I was accompanied by assorted hometown favorites. Sometimes by my classy east coast Wellesley girl or some other old high school friend; other times, by a group of guys in tight jeans and Chuck Taylors, the ones who were always half-heartedly aspiring to become rock stars. I’ve never come in here alone but I can’t really explain why.

I stood in line at the counter waiting to order the usual – a vanilla latte – with my arms crossed in front of me, trying desperately to warm myself in my own body heat. When I came here, I always left my jacket in the car where it would stay smoke-free. I’m not a smoker, but if I were, I probably would have had no problem getting a nicotine high in the time it takes to drink one cup of coffee. The smoke circulated and re-circulated on the downstairs floor of the café twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The upstairs was smoke-free, but a lot of my friends are smokers these days. I convinced myself that smoke flavoring in my latte wouldn’t kill me.

For me, a night out like this was as good as it gets. For some, though, it was probably like acquiring a taste for cheap beer after finding love with an expensive wine.

I watched people filter in and out through the front and side doors. Mohawks. Black eyeliner. Assorted colors of plastic-framed glasses. Shoes that look like the ones they give you at the bowling alley.

Cigarettes flames created a glow of haze around floating heads in the dimly-lit room. I felt a little bit like an army of one without a cigarette between my clammy fingers. But there was always an array of customers who gratified their fixations different ways. Compulsive Harry Potter readers, chess and checkers buffs, and euchre experts among others. There were always bodies here and there typing incessantly on their laptop computers, revealing only pairs of eyes and top halves of noses. They always looked content, though, as did most. High on life or high on weed – both seemed to satisfy the post-midnight crowd at Fourth Coast.

The cold bursts of air usually gave me about fifteen minutes to finish my latte. If I didn’t, I would be left with a crusted ring of foam around the inside of the glass. So I tipped the glass and suck back the cold, foamy bubbles at the bottom. By then, I had to pee. On my way I’d pass the fingerprinted glass door. Next to it there was usually a mess of dog-eared flyers pinned to the wall. Plays. Poetry readings. Music events. Park festivals. Open mic nights.

I opted for a strawberry crème soda-ish drink the second time around. The tall, skinny boy behind the counter always greeted me the same way: “Hey, how’s it goin’?” He had a lizard tattooed on his wrist and as a rule, wore something like a brown and orange argyle sweater or a worn, tight t-shirt. He turned around to pump the syrup into a tall glass, singing along with the music as he worked. While he added the soda, I stared out the window where the moped army had driven by earlier. The tattoo parlor’s neon sign was still on. I wondered if it was ever turned off. Street lights captured floating flakes of snow on their descent against the dark sky. Stale smoke, music, and perpetuating chatter filled the coffee house.

The workers behind the counter changed the CD from Social Distortion to Radiohead to Blondie. My friends and I talked and talked and talked about the life-things that concerned us as early twenty-somethings – hating George Bush, getting a ‘real’ job, finding significant others and being totally broke.

As I reflected, I traced my finger along the jagged grooves in the wooden table. I rubbed my hand lightly across the cigarette ashes that were stuck on the coffee and soda spills. I chewed on the end of my straw and sucked out the watered-down soda and melted ice at the bottom of the glass. Just then, as if to avert my eyes from their trance-like state, a snowball splattered up against the window next to me. It jolted me into shock and sent a chill down my spine.

We collected our glasses and walked them over to the tub for dirty dishes. For a couple of hours, we had a common place to talk about putting off growing up and straying from the paths our parents had planned out for us. In a moment, it would be gone. As I added my empty glasses to the pile, I wondered what life after weekends at Fourth Coast would be like.

variability, attention, and strategy use.

Variability - CEP 903 11.9.07

• Variability exists between gifted and mainstream children, as illustrated by Johnson et. al. (2003). In their research, younger and older gifted children and mainstream children were tested on M capacity tasks and tasks measuring speed of processing, inhibition, and interference. Results obtained show that gifted children possess superior mental attention capacity, perform higher on speeded tasks, and are better at controlling attention (resisting interference). Consequently, greater mental capacity results in an increase in cognitive resources.

Education implications would tell us that because gifted children focus better, they are less likely to be distracted in class whereas mainstream children would have more difficulty staying on-task in the presence of distraction. Results obtained in this study could suggest that gifted children may have learned to form automatic associations between two concepts (i.e. trail making task – they associate 1 with A, 2 with B, etc) in a way that increases the likelihood that activation of one idea will prime activation of the other idea (1 primes A, 2 primes B, and so on). If this is the case, then they may not truly be better at effortful inhibition, rather, they are better at making associations that allow inhibitions to become automatic.

Gifted children also did not show superior inhibition, suggesting that they were not better at suppressing task-irrelevant information. This finding is illustrated by negative priming and shows that when a distracter stimulus in one trial becomes the target stimulus on the next trial, gifted children had slower response times because previous inhibition dampened the activation level of the stimulus. ADHD children, on the other hand, probably shift attention well, but do not focus well; therefore, they would be less influenced by negative priming.

• Another study on attention illustrates a second instance of variability in developing children. Jones et. al. (2003) conducted a study in which 3 and 4 year olds were tested on their ability to follow or inhibit instructions given by two different sources in a Simon Says task. Results show that younger children had lower accuracy whereas older children made few inhibitory errors. However, when the older children did make an error, their reaction time on the next trial was long. This could be perceived as an early sign of metacognition, as defined by Miller et. al. (1986). Older children who made few inhibitory errors were trying to figure out what they did wrong while younger children were unable to detect their own errors. As the results would suggest, there is a negative correlation between attentional shifting and ability to inhibit responses.

Educational implications from this article would suggest that preschoolers who shift attention easily have difficulty maintaining focus, which could be an indication of ADHD or some type of attentional problem. ADHD children would lose focus over fewer trials and would experience less trial to trial interference because they would be less aware if they made a mistake. These results are related to Kruschke’s work (2003) in that they suggest that attention to a target requires inhibition of a distracter.

Because accuracy to error-related performance is determined by brain structures in the frontal cortex, development of attention should depend on proper development of frontal brain structures (Nelson). For example, a negative prenatal environment can lead to stunted brain development, which would ultimately be detrimental to one’s ability to reduce error in attention inhibition tasks when compared to normally developing children.

• Strategy development as studied by Miller et. al. (1986) and Welch-Riss et. al. (2000) reveal variability in 4, 6, 8, and 10 year old children by testing their ability to use strategies effectively. Younger children were less likely to use a strategy or relied on one strategy, whether it worked or not. Older children, on the other hand, were not only more likely to use a strategy, but used a strategy tailored to the task.

Results would argue that increase in age leads to increase in automaticity of strategies for several reasons. First of all, neural connections become stronger with experience (Nelson). Secondly, as illustrated by Johnson et. al. (2003) and Jones et. al. (2003), younger children are less able to utilize multiple cognitive sources (i.e. memory and strategy). Finally, in agreement with Johnson and Jones and as stated by the limited capacity model (Miller et. al., 1986), capacity to access and use the right strategy and monitoring its use leaves little capacity for memory (TOM). Although age contributes to strategy use, so does type of strategy used. Experience is key for becoming automatic at strategies and becoming metacognitive (illustrated by the deception task).

Educational implications include realizing that young children do not have enough cognitive space to attend to multiple things at once and are less likely to use strategies because it requires memory, a resource that is already exhausted because mental capacity is already being applied somewhere else. As Kruschke would infer (2003), what we remember is limited by attention: if we pay attention to A, we have fewer resources available to attend to B.

• Finally, literacy achievement as described by Reynolds et. al. (1990) show variability in children as they develop. They found differences between less successful and more successful 10^th grade readers. More successful readers were likely to use selection attention strategies (SAS) to attend to important information and were better at conceptual tasks. Less successful readers, on the other hand, were less likely to attend to important information because their attention was directed toward perceptual qualities.

Results would suggest that attention does not necessarily equal learning and perceiving does not mean processing if attention and perception are focused on irrelevant properties. Increased metacognitive awareness allowed the more successful readers to utilize SAS to recall the important information.

These findings have several educational implications for literacy achievement. To begin with, they suggest that using appropriate strategies leads to better learning (Siegler, 2007). They also suggest that early reading is important because once language pathways lose stimulation, those pathways are more difficult to redirect and strengthen (Nelson). In order for readers to comprehend, decoding and vocabulary have to become automatic by 1^st grade (Juel, 1988).

Domain specific vs. domain general

Pinker proposes that language development is domain specific (1994). In other words, he believes that our abilities are prewired and controlled by separate mechanisms, processes, and pathways. His research is supported by instances in which individuals with language impairments can possess intact intellectual abilities while individuals with impaired intellectual abilities can possess intact language. He states that grammar structure is universal and that brain structure for language is the same in everyone. His argument may be supported by Nelson who states that the brain creates and strengthen new, different pathways in the brain to activate language competency in someone with a speech and language impairment.

Other research suggesting that learning is domain specific is illustrated by Reynolds et. al. (1990). Their research shows that children can have intact decoding abilities (perception) but impaired comprehension abilities (conception). They suggest that effective versus ineffective attention strategies determine reading success or failure and conclude that reading ability is controlled by separate mechanisms.

Smith would argue that language development is domain general and that learning is experience dependent (1999). General purpose mechanisms and associative learning are means by which we learn. Smith stated that words initially have no meaning until they are associated with something. According to the shape bias, children attended to shape in naming objects because as children learn words, the act of naming becomes a contextual cue that automatically recruits attention to shape.

Siegler would also agree that learning is domain general. According to his research, we possess general learning mechanisms that are refined by variability outcomes. Periods of stability (low variability) alternate with periods of transition (high variability) that help us determine which strategies are effective and ineffective. Learning is most likely when previous strategies weaken (due to failure, negative feedback) and new, more efficient strategies strengthen (i.e. infant reaching as described by Smith and Thelan, 2003).

I find the domain general learning mechanism arguments more compelling because they suggest that learning is experience dependent. If learning is prewired and innate, then education and rehabilitation would be useless. Or genes are expressed differently through different experiences and increases in experience lead to confirmation of certain probabilities (Saffran, 2003). Learning must be domain general because otherwise, associative learning would not occur. According to Nelson, learning is experience dependent; therefore, environmental influences must play a role. If a child with a brain impairment was viewed as unable to change, then what would be the point of teachers, speech pathologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists and so on? Likewise, how would we explain individual variability? If our brains were composed of specific mechanisms that direct learning, then we would be more alike than different.

The only way to reconcile these different perspectives is to realize that nature and nurture both contribute to learning. Our learning is experience dependent; however, our range of reaction and early experiences put constraints on later change and development of our abilities. Our brains do contain structure, but we all rely on external support for brain functioning. Infant brains, for example, have greater plasticity and are therefore more susceptible to learning. We cannot assume that all of our learning is due to domain specificity or domain generality because both are crucial to our development.

cognitive learning mechanisms

Teaching reading - CEP 903 10.5.07

• Statistical learning, as introduced by Saffran (2003), suggests that language is shaped by human learning mechanisms rather than innate brain structures. We learn to predict statistical probability by becoming familiar with sequences in language. For example, presenting the word ‘the’ or ‘a’ in text serves as a cue, helping us predict that a noun will follow it. Therefore, an increase in language experience increases our ability to confirm certain language probabilities. Teachers can utilize Saffran’s work when teaching reading to students by exposing them to print at an early age, focusing on language concepts such as phonetic features, word boundaries, and syntax.

• Embodiment refers to a concept claiming that we learn in our bodies and interact with our environment to obtain knowledge. Our behavior is a result of encoding perceptions. In a study conducted by Noice and Noice (2001), for example, movement facilitated recall even without intent because environmental cues provided scaffolding. Their finding suggests that active experiencing helps create meaning and enhances memory because real actions have properties that language descriptions do not. Teaching reading that utilizes embodiment could include role playing parts of a story or using concrete objects and hands-on experiments to help students visualize abstract concepts (Noice and Noice, 2001; Gentner, 2002).

• Test-enhanced learning suggests that testing students on material is more effective for retaining information in long term memory than repeated studying of the material (Roediger, 2006). Studying (or rereading) is different than retrieving information from our brains (testing) because the latter allows us to practice the skill actually required on future tests. Knowing this, an effective approach for teaching would be to expose students to reading material and administer periodic testing over the material. Students who are taught by this method would have the opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned on multiple occasions, each time strengthening their knowledge of the material.

• Maternal elaboration is found to effect child elaboration and memory over time (Reese, 1993). Utilizing elaborative techniques provides scaffolding for the learner in which he/she is able to re-experience learning the information each time a new elaboration is introduced. Reese’s findings provide implications for teaching in that they suggest effective ways for teachers and students to interact. Teaching by elaboration rather than repetition would provide bidirectional scaffolding that ultimately increases teacher-student interaction, facilitating communication and recall of information. In other words, asking a variety of questions over reading material allows the learner to make more connections in the brain because more resources are being activated whereas repeating the same question often does not provide adequate scaffolding for the learner.

• Glenberg’s memory model describes memory as being embodied by combining different sets of actions together (1997). In order to remember something, we either use clamping to ignore memories and attend to the environment or use suppression to decrease our current perception and enhance memories. Limitations on learning according to Glenberg are based on possible next steps that we know to be true because of our experiences. For example, in repetition priming of language, our previous exposure to reading material facilitates our current ability to process it. Teaching implications that utilize repetition priming are related to our ability to statistically predict language (Saffran, 2003) and mesh concepts (Glenberg, 1997). Teaching students to remember what they read can be modeled after repetition priming by creating multiple opportunities for students to associate concepts by meshing related words. For example, presenting the word ‘volcano’ and allowing students to choose from a list of words that are related to the word primes ‘magma’ or ‘lava’ but not ‘dog’ or ‘cat.’ ‘Magma’ and ‘lava’ are likely stored in the same category in the brain whereas ‘dog’ and ‘cat’ are not; therefore, memory retrieval is strengthened.

Empirical evidence

Brain research provides compelling evidence for learning and development in that it gives specific examples of how bidirectional change affects brain development (Nelson, 1997). As a basic explanation of Nelson’s findings, we know that learning and thinking equal brain change. Bidirectional change can be described as experiences that lead to brain change and a changed brain that leads to changed experiences. For example, an infant brain possesses great capacity for change because neurons in the brain are initially uncommitted. Once connected, the neurons become stronger and neuroplasticity decreases. As a result, each experience sets limits for later change.

Infancy can be considered a foundation for future learning in which boundaries for brain development are set by a range of reaction. An infant’s range of reaction puts constraints on intellectual ability and positive or negative results are manifested by environmental influences. Range of reaction could be determined by a number of factors. Stressful pregnancy and malnutrition are biological influences that contribute to decreased brain development. Poor parenting and lack of exposure to educational materials are environmental influences that contribute to negative bidirectional change. In each case, fewer opportunities are available for high intellectual ability.

Brain research has clear implications for education in that it gives teachers hope that the brain has plasticity. At the same time, it supports the notion that parents have a crucial role in shaping healthy early learning experiences. Furthermore, it allows teachers to understand why children have different intellectual abilities and behave differently. Brain research confirms that early intervention is more effective than later intervention because it provides more opportunity for positive brain change and experience.

Unlike the convincing evidence found in Nelson’s research, Reese’s evidence suggesting that maternal elaboration is an effective technique for facilitating childrens’ memory is less compelling (1993). According to Reese, highly elaborative mothers facilitate child elaboration and memory of information. The evidence supporting this claim argues that elaboration creates scaffolding for recalling past events and that a child is able to contribute more information about these events if the mother is elaborative.

The first problem with these findings is that they are ungeneralizable. The study results show that high elaborative style is associated with girls more than boys. If boys are exposed to less elaboration, they will inevitably become less elaborative as an adult. In other words, socializing girls to elaborate more begins as a small difference that becomes magnified over time. As a result, dads are likely to be much less elaborative. This brings me to my next criticism. Father elaboration style was not addressed perhaps because it would fail to support that the concept of high elaboration style is generalizable. This study also fails to take environmental factors into consideration. Ability to use elaboration clues may vary according to a child’s ability to block out distracting information in the environment. If memory is enhanced by scaffolding, it seems that it should be worsened by irrelevant cues in the environment. Finally, misleading elaborations may foster the recall of inaccurate information; therefore, high elaboration style from a misinformed source may hinder rather than help recall accurate information.