Dear Ms. B

(Creative Nonfiction) "I wasn’t sure where you'd gotten the idea I was more interested in biology than dying penniless."

Photos by Annie Hendrix c. 2001

Dear Ms. B.,

Do you remember when you invited me to be someone, for the sake of the world? I was eleven when we visited the microbiology lab at University of California San Francisco together. You brought cinnamon bread along for the ride. Your sedan was newer than most cars I’d been in, and as it glided through the fog along Highway 101 across the Golden Gate Bridge, I felt like we were flying.

The day you told the class you had chosen me for this excursion, you explained your husband had a Take Your Daughter to Work Day event coming up, but you had no daughter. I wondered why your blue eyes glistened as they met mine, why they were so sad and searching.

Your eyes had looked that way a few times before: at the parent-teacher conference where you asked my mom if everything was okay at home, the time you told the class Edgar Allan Poe had died penniless, and of course the day the Twin Towers crumbled from the New York City skyline. On that particular Tuesday your eyes were almost frozen, glassy blue. You were not alone. That morning, I sat beside my dad as he dressed, his mouth hung open, eyes squinting at the television. I don’t think I’d ever seen him struggle to make sense of anything before.

When my mom delivered me to your class that morning, you closed the curtains and set up a cart with a television on top at the front of the room. There was no need to get our attention. We sat paralyzed by the relentless loop of violent explosions, waiting for you to tell us everything would be alright. But you didn’t. You said the world would never be the same.

“Have as many of those as you want.” You gestured to the bag of cinnamon bread.

“Really?” I shoved a few more pieces in my mouth as we drove through the fog toward UCSF. I wasn’t sure what I had done to deserve this exclusive field trip. I was the only girl in my class in Gifted And Talented Education, but I had always been drawn to the arts. I wasn’t sure where you’d gotten the idea I was more interested in biology than dying penniless.

When we arrived at the lab, we gathered among other pairs of girls and chaperones. The guide explained we would typically put on white suits over our clothes and wear blue gloves to keep everything clean, but that day we didn’t need to because we wouldn’t be touching anything. Only observing. We watched as scientists squeezed droppers of fluid into tiny circles in plastic trays.

“Is there even anything in there?” asked a girl in French braids.

“Yes, but it’s extremely small,” said the woman squeezing the dropper.

I felt as though I were watching the Oompa Loompas from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, only there was no singing, dancing, or chocolate. The walls where white and windowless, and each petri dish was filled under bright, florescent light. “Do you have to do this all day?” I asked.

“Pretty much.”

“Do you get a recess?”

The technician laughed, then explained her break schedule in earnest.

When the tour was over, we went to the bookstore. You bought me an orange juice and asked what I thought of your husband’s work. “Do you think you might want to be a scientist when you grow up?” you asked.

“No way,” I said. Because I was a child. I didn’t know how grateful I should have been for the good you were trying to do, and not just for me. I didn’t understand the hidden question within “What do you want to be when you grow up?” may not be “what is it you plan to do/with your one wild and precious life?” (Oliver, lines 18-19 ), but “Who would you like to become, for the sake of the world?”

Thanks for reading!

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