First Day of School
It’s September 1977. The first Tuesday after Labour Day and my first day of kindergarten. Having been to daycare, leaving home in the morning is nothing new. Yet, this is something decidedly different about today day. I don’t remember putting on my white shirt and blue corduroy jumper uniform or brushing my hair. Still, I remember the nervous energy when I, holding my father’s hand, showed up to my colourful kindergarten classroom. It was undoubtedly the beginning of a new phase of life.
Being born in November, I missed the cut-off for public school by eight days. Knowing they would have to pay for daycare anyway, my parents enrolled me in a private school - Dartmouth Academy. Sound prestigious? This was Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, not the famed Dartmouth, New Hampshire. Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, aka Darkness or the Darkside, is one of the most unpretentious places on earth.
Also, we are smack dab in the first Trudeau era – a time of acceptance of a bilingual, multi-cultural Canada. Dartmouth Academy is a French school. I don’t remember noticing that everyone speaks another language since I live in a home where multiple languages are spoken. But I remember the big welcoming smile of my kindergarten teacher, Madame Lucienne. She has big curly black hair, loop earrings, and a colourful long “Mrs. Roper” style dress. She is full of smiles and loving energy pour tous les enfants. There is macrame hanging on the walls, between the artwork of previous students. Along the ledge of the window are two bags of maple cookies and two cans of apple juice, announcing that this was indeed a fun, if not safe, place.
My father brings me to a table where a few other girls sit quietly with their parents. As we sit there in silence, waiting for the day to start, a scary aura of the unknown fills the room. At last, the silence is broken by Madame Lucienne, who offers a few words of welcome. Then my Dad and the other parents wave goodbye, leave, and our first day of school begins.
The first activity of the day is colouring. I know how to stay in the lines and feel ready for the task. As I pull out my crayons, my neighbour, a blonde girl with low-set pigtails tied just below her ears, pulls out colour pencils. A few other girls at the table have colour pencils in their hands. Then, the blonde pigtailed girl turns to me and says, “You use crayons? Crayons are for babies. Big girls use colour PENCILS” The other girls nod in agreement.
WHAT? Colour Pencils? No one told me! Grrrr. I exhale out through flared nostrils. One thing I am not is a baby.
Yet, there I am, colouring with crayons that, up until that moment, had been just fine. So, I will have to go through the rest of the day colouring with crayons – like a baby. Hmmph.
I take a deep breath and make a note to myself to tell my Dad that I needed colour PENCILS because I was a BIG GIRL, and BIG GIRLS used colour pencils.
Despite the school supplies hiccup, I survive colouring.
Then, we move on to music, singing some Classic Childhood standards – “Sur le Pont d’Avignon,” “Frere Jacques,” and everyone’s favourite song, “Allouette!”
“Allouette! Gentille Allouette! Ahhhh – Louett –Te – Je te plumerai!” The singing is healing, So, not all bad. In fact, pretty fun for a morning.
Then comes lunch, and I am SOOOO excited about my lunchbox. It is an orange and black NHL (pre-expansion) lunchbox featuring on the front all the emblems of the current teams. I LOVE it and have been playing with it for weeks, waiting to pull it out for this exact moment.
(Photo courtesy of Pinterest https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/vintage-rare-1974-aladdin-canadian-nhl-ice-hockey-orange-and-black-lunch-box-thermos-set--721913015243096205/)
I was born in Winnipeg and was a big Winnipeg Jets fan. Growing up, I was plastered in Jets gear. I had a scarf and a toque with their logo that I wore religiously during the winter. It would only get shed in the summer for my Nadia Comaneci body suit that I wore with everything.
I excitedly get my lunchbox, place it on the table, and wait for our teacher to tell us it was time to open them up. Just then, the crayons-are-for-babies pig-tailed girl looks at me and says, “That’s a BOY’S lunch box!” The other girls look at my lunchbox and nod in agreement.
What? A boy’s lunchbox? Once again, I am shocked. My cheeks heat up, the pit of my stomach hollows out, and I fall into the bottomless abyss of shame.
It’s 1977 and long before the current gender fluid phenomenon. Gender roles and stereotypes are strictly followed to conform to societal rules. Girls in pink playing with dolls. Boys in blue playing with Tonka trucks. This was before female hockey players, teams, or gold medals.
As a child, I am surrounded by boys - older brothers and friends. Sure, I also play with girls my age, but come to think of it, most of them have older brothers too. In the ’70s, parents were nowhere to be found. The oldest sibling is in charge of you, and you do what they dictate. For my brother, hockey is life. Therefore, I watch hockey and play hockey with him. He wraps me up in shin pads made of folded newspapers and shoots pucks at me. But still, this is how we play. I also know all the players. My favourites are Bobby Orr and Bobby Hull. Hockey is the Canadian national pastime, and my parents do not even question it as they do their best to fit into their new country.
Yet, here I am, sitting at the table with my orange and black NHL lunch box, which is apparently for boys, surrounded by a bunch of girls with pink Barbie lunch boxes.
One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn’t belong.
My stomach is in knots, and my eyes well up with tears. I hold my head down and bite into a triangle of my Peanut Butter and Jam on Wonder Bread sandwich. Silently, I sit and eat my lunch out of that stupid box, hating it for the first time.
That night, I go home and tell my Dad I need a girl’s lunchbox, not a boy’s. A pink one. Oh, and I need colour PENCILS because I am a big girl now and only babies use crayons.
So, after supper, we get in the car and drive to the local Kmart. Holding his hand, I walk to the now picked-over lunch box aisle. I find a beautiful metal lunch box with pink and purple flowers and a metal clasp. It makes me smile, holding it by its white plastic handle. Then we go to the school supplies aisle, and I pick out some Laurentien colour pencils. The next day, I go to school, pink-&-purple flowered lunchbox in hand and my big girl art supplies in my school bag.
Kindergarten, Take 2. Action!
Over thirty years later, I am scrolling on eBay when I see an NHL pre-expansion orange and black lunchbox. My heart races with excitement at the site of it. My beloved lunchbox! Then, I remember the incident that made me hate it, and an ache arises in my chest. A favourite lunchbox tossed aside under peer pressure. Had I not listened to those mean girls and kept that lunchbox and cherished it, it would be a collector’s item now – worth hundreds at least, maybe even thousands! The uncomfortable ache in my heart causes me to stiffen in my chest and jaw. Then it gets converted to anger and lashes out against those pig-tailed five-year-old little girls in my memory.
I take a breath in and out. I recognize that underneath my resentment and anger, pain. Once again, it wells up in my chest. But, instead of pushing it down or away, I hold space for it, allowing it to be with me.
Then, envisioning my younger self in my mind, I say to her:
“It’s ok to cry. Those girls are just mean. Unfortunately, you are going to meet a lot of mean girls in your life. They will try to make you feel bad about yourself, but it is their fear and insecurity. So go ahead and be yourself. You are special.” Then I tell her, “By the way, one day, women will play hockey in the Olympics, and you will be there to see those women win Gold!”