If Memory Serves Me Write

  No one I hung out with in highschool liked P.E. lessons.  Waiting in the hallway before the P.E. teachers arrived was agony - we never knew what activity we’d be doing and they always seemed to take ages to get there, extending the time we had to worry whether it would be dodgeball or track running or something equally awful.  We would all moan and discuss ways of getting out of class, although none of us were brave enough to dare try, of course.  In the segregated changing areas, and as a very late bloomer, I was the “get-undressed-as-quickly-as-you-can” type of girl, and oftentimes would be the first to be ready outside of the changing room awaiting the teacher. I had just finished stuffing my sports’ bra when I heard a commotion in the hallway - I quickly pulled on my tearaway tracksuit bottoms and hurried out the door to see what was going on. A group of about ten boys - mostly wrestlers and footballers (I religiously attended all wrestling practices because I ...

One day in July, when I was nine years old, my mother asked to take my measurements.  I asked her why - after all, she didn’t sew, and neither did anyone I knew.  She told me that my grandmother wanted to have an outfit made especially for me by a seamstress.  Being the dress-refusing, mud-adoring tomboy that I was, I instantly grimaced and protested, making it clearly known that I did NOT, under any circumstances, want a dress.  My mom allayed my fears by telling me my grandmother was going to have a jogging outfit made for me.  Now, I was not the cleverest child, because I instantly and unequivocally believed this.  I never questioned how ridiculous it might be to have jogging bottoms and a sweatshirt hand-made for a child of nine years old.   I had never run before outside of school, nor had I shown any interest in running.  And yet, once I was told I would have a jogging outfit, I became immediately enamored with the idea.  In my min...