lunchtime lessons
I walked into the cafeteria at Beechwood Elementary School and was shocked that in the more than twenty years since I’d been in elementary school myself, the smell was the same: that mixture of several days’ worth of mostly beige foods with an occasional whiff of cleaning product. This cafeteria, however, looked nothing like the one I visited everyday as a child. There weren’t low ceilings and fluorescent lights that gave the lunch ladies a sickly green skin tone reminiscent of the lunch ladies in cartoons. The walls weren’t that nothing yellow that I’ve come to associate with a school cafeteria even all these years later. This cafeteria was bright, with floor-to-ceiling windows spilling the room with ample daylight. Along one wall were a few rows of circular tables, seated at which were older students. The long tables that took up the rest of the cafeteria were occupied by kindergartners, most of whom sat in front of multicolored lunchboxes filled with brightly packaged snack items.
I was there to volunteer with my sister-in-law, who’d asked me to join her while I was in Cincinnati in November of last year. Everyday, parent volunteers would come to the school at lunchtime to help teachers open any items the kids might need help with, or wipe off tables after a group of kids finished, or be there as another set of eyes should anything happen. I imagine this points to a larger issue about public school funding and teachers not being paid commensurate with their duties during the school day, so I was happy to help out. Both my niece and nephew are students at this school and neither of them knew I was going to be there that day.
When I was in elementary school, my mom packed some variation on a pb&j, yogurt, and something crunchy and salty in a purple Princess Jasmine lunchbox for me everyday. At my school, the kids who packed their lunch could walk into the cafeteria and take a seat right away, while the kids who bought lunch would line up, money in hand, and make their way through what I only thought at the time must have been a maze of a kitchen. I’d watch them everyday and be in awe that they all seemed to know exactly what to do. They knew where to stand, and moved through the line, making choices with relative ease, an issue that packing my lunch had taken off my own plate. Though these were classmates of mine and we were all the same age, they seemed to possess a maturity that I did not.
After some time, I told my mom I wanted to buy my lunch. The Princess Jasmine lunchbox went in the cabinet, and instead, I was sent to school with $1.50 and a note for my teacher from my mom. This wasn’t the first time my mom sent me to school with a note for my teacher and they always revolved around me needing some kind of help she knew I wouldn’t ask for. Leah doesn’t quite know how to button these pants—can you be sure to help her after she uses the bathroom? That day, the note explained that I didn’t know how to buy my lunch and asked if she would show me how. I was sure to hand the note to my teacher at the beginning of the day, so that when it was time for me to buy lunch, the anxiety of admitting ignorance didn’t compound the anxiety of the already-existing ignorance. My teacher told me to follow a classmate of mine, a regular lunch purchaser, as they lined up to buy lunch. Walking through the kitchen, I wanted nothing more than to fit in with these kids who already knew the ropes, a feeling I’ve never outgrown. I imagine for a 7-year-old version of me, without the words to explain the feeling, the uncertainty mixed with the freedom of choice was overwhelming.
The kids at Beechwood were even more mature seeing versions of those classmates of mine who knew what to do. They walked into the cafeteria knowing what they wanted and who to ask should they need more. It was late November and the kitchen had made a Thanksgiving lunch: turkey with gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, and a small slice of pumpkin pie. The colors, the smell, the children walking around performing adulthood, all brought me right back to my own elementary school cafeteria, complete with the anxiety of not really knowing how to help any of the kids should they need it but knowing that I could surely use my adult card to fake it. Kids would raise their hands and I’d walk up to them, eager to help. More often than not, however, they just needed permission to go get something else from the kitchen. I felt like I was the one then performing some sense of authority that comes with age; when I was in elementary school, there was no going back to get more, so when a 2nd-grader simply pointed to the kitchen when I answered his raised hand, I nodded my head, as not to blow my own cover.
When the 3rd-graders entered the cafeteria for lunch, I spotted my niece right away. I hadn’t seen her since June, when she joined the rest of Evan’s family to California to say goodbye to him. Seeing her at school that day filled me with emotion I wasn’t expecting to surface. When her face lit at as she saw me, I started to cry, unaware it was even happening. I thought about her sitting at Evan’s bedside, asking him which colored pencil she should use for a drawing, then beaming with joy when her very cool uncle told her he loved what she drew. I thought about the immense amount of strength she showed at such a young age when she then had to tell him goodbye for the last time. I thought about her childlike ability to contain joy and grief simultaneously. I wrapped her in a hug and she too began to cry. It’s okay, I repeated as I rubbed her back, willing myself to stop crying. I was the adult, after all. Wasn’t I supposed to be the strong one?
She took a seat next to her classmates and buried her head in her hands, and I saw something that I’d been craving myself for months. Her friends didn’t ignore her tears or seem to be uncomfortable by it at all. They all simply comforted her and asked her what was wrong. It turns out it was okay. It’s okay to cry and perhaps sometimes it’s the strongest choice of all. Somewhere in our past, we’re told, either by an adult or some twisted societal messaging that crying is weak. We’re told that admitting what you don’t know is wrong. Here I was, the adult in room full of children acting more like adults than most of the people I see on a daily basis. They knew how to stand in line and make a choice about their lunch. They asked questions. They knew that emotions are a real part of being a human and that being a human amongst others is a whole lot more bearable that doing it alone.
In a lot of ways, school as a child does more than give us an academic foundation. It’s supposed to prepare us for adulthood. Here’s how you stand in a line. Here’s how you order a meal. There should be a break in the middle of your day where you sit and eat said meal. Then one day, those rules become suggestions as life takes precendent. We grab something easy in the middle of the day to eat while we do other things. We feign understanding for the sake of making everyone else feel comfortable. We allocate a little time at the end of the day for our Big Feelings, when we can experience them in solitude. All of this behavior comes from the people whose age has dictated that we are the teachers, while children are the students.
As lunch duty was wrapping up for me, there was a group of first graders lining up to leave the cafeteria, one of whom I noticed was still finishing up his lunch. I walked over to his table and offered to help him by throwing away some of his trash and packing his lunchbox as he took some final bites. As he stood up and walked toward the rest of his class, he became curious and asked me several questions and offered some information about himself. What’s your name? Whose mom are you? My brother is a teenager. Happy to engage in conversation, I walked with him chatted as he joined his classmates. Before he left, I noticed his shoe was untied and let him know. He admitted he didn’t know how to tie it, so I offered to do it for him. I tied his shoe and stood up as his class was beginning to leave the cafeteria. He smiled at me.
“Will you be my best friend?” he asked.
I smiled back, remembering when I asked a fellow first grader the same question at that age, after we’d had a nice time together at recess. I’d helped this boy throw away his trash, tie his shoe, and feel a little more prepared for the rest of his day. That’s all it took. In turn, he’d unwittingly reminded me that the mental gymnastics we do everyday as we communicate with others as adults is hardly ever worth the effort. In that moment, this little boy was my best friend.
“Yes, of course,” I responded.