The Memoir Experiment

Hiya Kids! I realize it's been almost two months since I last wrote, but, you know, it's summer. I've been doing awesome things like going to Italy and eating way too much pizza. But now that I'm sufficiently carb filled and rested (my days usually go like this: eat, read, eat, read, walk, repeat), it's time to get back on the writing wagon. And I thought I'd start things off with an excerpt from a recent project from my Memoir I Class I took at Gotham this spring.

The only context I think you need is to know that I'm sort of kinda thinking about writing a memoiresque book about my experiences as a teacher, and this something I've come up with so far.

Ciao!

PB (Pre-Brownsville, part 1)

Acting to Teach

My plan was to be a professional actor. And I was. For about five years.

In 2001, I received my B.A. in Theater from George Mason University (located in the suburbs of Washington DC) and immediately hit the pavement as a “working actor” in the nation’s capital. Armed with an arsenal of 2-minute monologues, 16-bar song selections, and a “God I hope I get it” attitude, I believed in my art and in the pursuit of it.

And then: I got tired of being a secretary. Or a personal assistant. Or a barista.

I got tired of working day jobs that turned my brain to goo and left me less than thrilled to schlep to auditions where everyone looked like wannabe Eponines from Les Miserables, including me.

I got tired of knowing that I could be so much more than an ensemble member in a yet unnamed modern dance/crime drama in a pseudo-professional production in Towson, Maryland.

I got tired of knowing that my days could be spent doing so many other worthwhile activities than preparing for the Merrily We Roll Along chorus auditions for the fifth time.

I got tired of feeling like a waste; that time was running out to do something with my life.

And so I went back to the only other thing I’ve always been really good at besides acting: bossing people around. Or, in other words, teaching.

Let me back up. From the time I was two years old and addressed a metal coca-cola truck as my pet dog “Bo Pat,” I’ve been excellent at two distinct things 1) pretending to be someone I’m not and 2) giving people orders.

Acting and Teaching. Done and done.

I “acted” with my parents, my aunts and uncles, my brother and cousins. I bossed around neighbors, grandparents, classmates and even strangers. Between the ages of 2 and 12, I lived in a multi-genre world of imagination. Tragedies, Comedies, Musicals, even Soap Operas, all received my “touch” as an actor/director/playwright/producer.

Here, for your pleasure, is a typical scene from one my early “ pertend” creations:

3-year-old Jamie: Mommy, let’s pertend that you stand here and say hello and then I say hello and then we both walk over here and pertend to eat breakfast.

Jamie’s silent, wisely obedient, sandy-haired, 5 foot Momma: Ok.

(Scene continues for a few more moments. And then the dénouement.)

Little Jamie: You pertend you’re eating Cherrios and I’ll pertend I’m eating Rice Krispies.

End Scene.

Chekhov I was not.

But I was prolific. And enduring.

I once spent two solid hours on the basement stairs “smoking” cigarettes made out of black Bic pens and pretending I was an alcoholic who was in danger of losing her kids. (My parents’ experiences as social workers in the child welfare system of West Virginia provided a particularly deep pool of inspiration.)

Alcoholic dramedies aside, my all-time favorite pertend production was school. It was my Cats, if you will. I played it in my room, in the backyard, at even, school. I most often played it, however, on my grandparents’ terrace.

***

PB (Pre-Brownsville, part 2)

Do and Pa’s Terrace

From between the ages of six to twelve, my younger brother Zack and I spent our Tuesdays and Thursdays at Do and Pa’s house while our mother worked part-time (Note: I invented the name Do and have no idea how or why I did so. The story is I got it from saying, “Do this and do that.” But I’m pretty sure that’s bogus. I think it was just an early indicator of my odd, yet delightful strangeness. My grandfather was always Pa. Just Pa.)

For most of our childhood, my brother and I shared very little in common (He was athletic, blonde, skinny, good at math whereas I was dramatic, brunette, pudgy, and lived in my own head). The one item we agreed on, however, was the awesomeness of afternoons at Do and Pa’s. Why? #1: The snacks. Junkwise, Do beat our Mom’s hands down: Doritos, Bugles, Cheetos. We didn’t have these treasures at our house. Even the leftover cookies from the days she volunteered at the local bloodmobile were gold. And she had these little wicker baskets we could keep our handfuls of Cool Ranch in. The woman even made portion control fun.

#2: location, location, location. Do and Pa’s house offered near limitless pertend opportunities. There was the front yard off to the right of the driveway where the mint grew – that, during ages nine and ten, was my choice location for playing “house.” There was the cabin, which was literally a cabin attached to the side of the house that my architect grandfather ingeniously constructed in the early 1960s, and where my grandparents made their bedroom. It was also where I made my imaginary hair studio. (Do was my only client.)

And finally, there was the terrace. The “terrace” was essentially a patio made of flat bricks that adjourned one of the only non-hill sections of the backyard. (This was West Virginia, the Mountain State, after all.) It ran the length of the kitchen and living room and was where we had all outdoor cookouts, birthday parties, etc. It was also the location of my first classroom as a teacher.

You see, in addition to the patio furniture I could arrange into desks and classroom formations, the terrace had an undisputable trump card: a blackboard. And this wasn’t some dinky chalkboard on an easel like the ones they had at Kmart or Toys R Us this was a blackboard affixed to a wall – just like the kind they had at school. And given that it attached to the siding directly below the kitchen window, it was also just my height. Genius.

So, from ages six to eleven, I played school most Tuesdays and Thursdays on the terrace (weather permitting). My actual lessons were usually mimics of that night’s homework (spelling lists, math problems) or simple grammar assignments. (Twenty years later, at NYU, I would learn that these direct moments of instruction are called “mini-lessons.”) My strength as an imaginary teacher was never in content. My focus then, as it is now, was in student relationships.

For hours on the terrace, I would call on my imaginary students to answer. To come up to the board. To sit down and be quiet. To share their responses with the class. Never mind that if you were my grandfather and happened to look out of the kitchen window all you would see was a slightly chubby, kinky haired eight year old Jamie wearing polka dot leggings and her favorite Jamz sweatshirt talking to herself. To me, my classroom was full and alive. Students working feverishly, all clamoring for attention from Mrs. Boileau. (I wonder what my eight year old self would think of my current students addressing me by first name? I doubt the younger me would approve; I was quite traditional in my pedagogy back then.)

The greatest evidence, however, of my attempts at building strong (imaginary) student relationships exists in my infamous “notes home.” After going over the day’s spelling list or fraction problem, my teaching day often culminated with one or two letters home that I would write on my grandfather’s note pads. The correspondence usually looked something like this:

Dear Mrs. Smith,

Your daughter Alicia was very bad in class today. I am worried about her behavior. I had to write her name on the blackboard twice.

Please come see me as soon as you can.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Boileau

My grandfather, Pa, whose imagination and sense of empathy was less forgiving than my grandmother’s, would find several of these notes in various locations throughout the house.

Looking back, it’s probably not that surprising that he thought I was a schizophrenic.

Fast-forward twenty years, and my classroom has moved from my grandparents’ terrace in Bluefield, West Virginia to a crumbling, public school building in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

The students have changed from imaginary white 3^rd graders to seventeen and eighteen year old African American, Dominican, Jamaican, and Haitian young men and women who desperately need a second chance.

I still act and I’m still bossy.

Pertend has become reality.