by Veera Hiranandani
If I had to choose one photograph to represent my childhood, it would be this one: I’m standing outside at school, around eight or nine years old, surrounded by four of my closest friends at the time, and we’re all in the same class. For some reason, the picture is black and white, even though I’m not that old. Our mouths form the shape of O’s because we’re singing. Our eyes squint into the sun as our arms drape around each other’s shoulders. There’s a male teacher sitting next to us strumming a guitar and a female teacher facing us who also sings. We wear T-shirts and jeans, and every single one of us—the boys, the girls, the women, the men—have long, loose hair. We seem completely immersed in the moment. I’m not sure if it was an organized performance or just a bit of spontaneous fun. I don’t even remember the exact moment captured in the photograph, but back then I had many moments like this one.
This picture was taken at the elementary school I attended from first through fourth grade. It was a small progressive, independent school in Connecticut called the Learning Community. We all called it LC. A few of my parents’ friends had started the school. Let me write that again in case you missed it—the school was started by my parents’ friends. Which sort of means that one day a few of them got together and said, “Hey, let’s start a really awesome school!” and my parents were like “Cool!” and then they sent my sister and me there for four years. They were some of the most foundational, inspiring, and hopeful years of my life.
I don’t have too many photographs from LC, but several mental snapshots come to me when I think about this time, and I think about it often. The memories I have are not in black and white. They bloom into my consciousness like rainbow-colored bursts of watercolor paint. I never get tired of revisiting them.
Here are a few more: I’m about to go on a camping trip, one of the several camping trips I went on with my class. I’ve got my sleeping bag tucked under my arm and a backpack slung over my shoulder. I’m standing in the parking lot, where my parents have just dropped me off. It’s early in the morning. I watch one of our teachers, or a parent, or someone who was both, go through the checklist. Bread, hot dogs, peanut butter, jelly, marshmallows, milk, cereal, and water—check! Sleeping bags, clothes, and tents—check! First aid kit—check! Guitars—check! We pile into cars (and I really do mean pile; it was the seventies) and head off to Pound Ridge Reservation.
When we get there, we set up camp in one of the lean-tos (small open shelters) and spend the day hiking through the trails. We ramble over the paths and hills and rocks. We discover fallen trees, caves, flowers, squirrels, birds, frogs, and turtles. We swim in our underwear and lie on rocks in the sun to dry off. We all somehow make it back to the camp without losing anyone. There we do all the classic camping things. We roast hot dogs on sticks and tell ghost stories, and at least one of the teachers has a guitar and plays song after song. It eventually ends in a round of “Leaving on a Jet Plane” by John Denver. We fall asleep under the roof of the lean-to in our sleeping bags. The ground is hard, but I know I’ll sleep because I’m exhausted from the day. The last thing I remember is falling asleep as the stars glow through the pine trees against the dark sky, which I can see through the shelter opening.
In another one, there’s more tangled hair tumbling down my back. My fingernails are dirty, and the mud stains on my jeans soak through to the skin on my knees. I kneel in the dirt in front of a gravestone, clutching thick, paperless crayons. I press a large sheet of newsprint against the front of the gravestone, rubbing the side of the crayon against it. I take a print and then do another. As I rub the crayon, I think about the name of the person on the gravestone. It’s windy and cold, but I don’t care because I’m so engrossed in the project. I want my rubbings to look good to honor the dead. I think about the names and the lengths of the lives I’m recording. I’m a little frightened, but fascinated and curious.
In another, we take a weeklong winter trip to a place called Nature’s Classroom. We stay in bunks and learn how to tap trees for sap, make maple syrup, and track animal footprints in the snow. One morning, we walk along the circumference of a large frozen lake. We all hold on to a rope and stay in a wiggly line. I remember passing a few ducks swimming in a hole in the ice toward the middle of the lake. I wonder if they’re cold. We find a beaver lodge. We watch fish swimming under our feet.
In another memory, we shape and glaze pottery, so much pottery. In another, we write a play, construct and paint sets for it, direct and perform it. In another, we create a restaurant as a fundraiser, write up menus, and cook and serve food for our parents. In others, we sit quietly on beanbag chairs in the classroom as we write in our journals. We put on science fairs. We study foods, religions, and cultures from around the world. Even in the youngest grades, we discuss politics and human rights. In another, it’s so nice outside, the teachers decide that recess should last all afternoon.
I had seven other kids in my class. We went through all the grades together. It was truly an extended family. During these years, I experienced the longest state of happiness that I possibly ever will. I know it was lucky and rare to have this time. It is my base. It’s the roots from where much of who I am today started to form and grow. Happiness, as one gets older, is usually tempered with the complex challenges of life. In a way, you learn to appreciate the good times more because you know they’re temporary. I also know many people do not have happy childhoods, but for these four years, I had the privilege of being loved, seen, and part of something completely. There were so many days filled with creativity, wonder, possibility, and hope. Many of the friends I had in school were my parents’ friends’ kids, and our lives blended into a fluid space. School was home was life was school. Of course, it wasn’t perfect. I had conflicts with friends and the common frustrations one might feel as a first-through-fourth grader, but honestly, I remember very little of them.
Cue the sound of screeching brakes.
It had to end. Everything does eventually, even the bad things, but enrollment at the school was dwindling in the upper grades, and my parents also worried that I might not be getting enough of a well-rounded education. They were partly right, because when I changed schools, I was technically behind in some areas of math and science. But did anyone at my new school know what it was like to spend a winter morning holding hands with your classmates as you walked the perimeter of a snow-covered lake under a canopy of tree branches, as the sun rose and fish swam under your feet? Long division could never replace that.
So in fourth grade, when my class graduated, we all went our separate ways to separate school districts. Over the years, the Learning Community evolved into a preschool, and the truth is that if I had stayed and we had all continued on as a class of eight, there might have been more conflicts and growing pains. Or, if the school grew in numbers, new students and older-kid concerns would have complicated things. Perhaps I might have started to feel limited or bored. But none of this happened because I left before it could.
Cut to me in fifth grade. These are my memory snapshots of that first year: I walk in a single-file line toward the end through a long maze of hallways. Nobody speaks. It’s hard to stay in line as we round the corners, but I try because the teacher calls out anyone who talks or steps out of line. I wonder why she seems to have so little trust in us?
Once, during a test, I get up to go to the bathroom. The teacher reprimands me in the middle of class. She wants to know why in the world would I go to the bathroom during a test? And if it was that urgent, why wouldn’t I raise my hand and ask first? I stand there feeling ashamed and embarrassed. I want to tell her that I never had rules like this at my old school and I’m confused and I need a little more time to get used to things. But I don’t. I just sit down, cheeks burning, and finish the test.
Here’s another. I sit in my classroom during lunch while my teachers discuss my performance. I have two teachers in the fifth grade. They are called “team” teachers, but they don’t seem to like each other very much or enjoy being on the same team. One is nicer than the other. The nice teacher, who teaches English and social studies, has recommended that I move up a level. The other teacher, who teaches math and science, has recommended that I don’t. I watch them debate and wonder why I’m here for the discussion. I also wonder why I can’t just move up a level in English and social studies, but not in math and science. According to the not-so-nice teacher, you have to move up in all subjects at the same time, so it’s decided that I don’t move up in any.
Or I’m on a playground sitting on a bench by myself as I observe the groups gathered around me. I see a girl sitting on a rock near the edge of the playground. She’s also alone. She squints at me, and I smile. She just stares back, and as I try to summon up the courage to raise my hand and wave hi, she throws a pebble at me and runs away.
I also remember that none of the kids or teachers can say my last name correctly. No one asks me how to pronounce it, and I’m too shy to correct anyone. Once, at lunch, I’m asked where my name is “from.” I say it’s an Indian name, and one kid says “Ahhhhh” while he pats his mouth. I realize he thinks I’m Native American, and I know that if I were Native American, I would still feel awful. Another kid asks me if I worship cows and laughs at me when I don’t answer.
Needless to say, the first year at my new school didn’t go so well. One of the biggest adjustments was how both my racial and religious backgrounds leaped to the forefront of my identity. I was asked multiple questions about my Indian name, my background, and how I could be Indian and Jewish and Hindu at the same time. I didn’t know the answer. I had never been asked this question before. At my new school, even though it was much larger, there were maybe two kids who were Jewish, and no one in my class who had an Indian background, let alone both. It seemed that I was the only person like me for miles and miles. It made me look at myself, my Indian American dad and my Jewish American mom, in a new way. It was the first time I realized that these aspects of my identity were going to be treated differently depending on the community I was in.
Being “different” isn’t a bad thing. We’re all different in one way or another. Humanity is incredibly diverse, but that recognition of the world’s diversity doesn’t exist in every community. What’s interesting is that I was the only child with my particular background in my old school and my new school, but I was treated differently in each community. Over time, I’ve come to understand that the responsibility of inclusivity lies with the majority because they have more power. There are many communities where white, Christian, heterosexual, neurotypical, or nondisabled people make up the majority, like the communities at both of my schools. But how do they treat what they perceive as differences? Do they respect differences, celebrate them, incorporate them into the fabric of one community where everyone is different and also similar? Or do they reject and exclude out of the fear of losing a certain kind of power?
These questions stayed with me as I continued in school and as an adult. As I moved up in my new school, I found my way. I got involved in gymnastics, theater, and art. I wrote pieces for the literary magazine. I lost myself in books when I needed a break from the real world. I wish I could tell you that at my new school I eventually found a space where I recaptured those Learning Community days, but I didn’t—not that year, nor in middle school, nor high school. Over time I adjusted and made some good friends, but I never felt completely accepted or comfortable. I continued my love of creating art, however. Writing stories, painting, and putting on plays was where I could tap into the freedom I had experienced at LC, and I remained involved in all those things year after year. It’s probably why I’m a writer today.
When I look back, I’ve wondered if spending those years at LC in such a free and positive space sort of ruined me for the “regular” world, or somehow raised my expectations too high so that a lot of my schooling after that could only be a disappointment, but I don’t think so. It taught me that being creative, open-hearted, and connected to nature was how I could carry what I learned at LC wherever I went, that it was mine and no one could take it away. It was the way I empowered myself during that first lonely year in fifth grade and how I still do.
I decided to go to college in a big city because I felt that I’d be more likely to find diverse and open-minded spaces. In some ways, I found what I was looking for, and in some ways, I didn’t. These questions and feelings, however, remained with me and became the genesis of my first book, The Whole Story of Half a Girl.
Often we are told that when we go through more difficult times, that’s when we become stronger, understand the world more clearly, and prevail. But that’s not what I’m going to tell you here. Yes, some adversity can build strength. It can toughen you up and prepare you for challenges that we all face. Too much adversity can also beat you down. The kind of struggles I went through weren’t that unusual. Many people go through struggles like mine, and many people go through a lot worse. We do need to get a little beaten up by the world to understand it more clearly and to develop a resilience that helps us survive tougher times. But often, the reason we dust ourselves off and keep going is because we feel hopeful that there’s something better ahead. The reason we do this is because we’ve had a moment (or hopefully more than a moment) in our lives when we’ve connected with the center of who we are, when we’ve felt fully accepted, when we’ve felt like we’re not only enough, but more than enough.
So think back on your life. When have you been the happiest? The most free? More you than you’ve ever been? That’s what gives you the ultimate strength to push past something difficult. It’s the strength you build in those moments that helps get you through. That strength is gold.
Because of LC, I know what I need to feel happy and accepted, and I know I’m worthy of that. When I’m going through something hard or doubting myself and feeling powerless or not enough, I go to that place, that photograph of my tangled hair blowing all around as I sing loudly (and by the way, I’m not a very good singer), surrounded by friends and guitars, not worrying what anyone thinks. I’m just being me to the core, and that’s just fine. That’s what gives me the most strength and hope for my own future.
Most of us can remember a moment like that photograph, a freeze-frame of beauty before a new worry, doubt, or fear has come our way. Maybe this moment for you was before a difficult time or after, but if you can think of a period when you experienced a clearing of space, like a field of wildflowers discovered unexpectedly after climbing up a mountain, a place where perhaps you felt your essence in all its glory, don’t forget to capture it in some way—draw it, write about it, take a mental snapshot. This moment might only be a few minutes, or an hour, or a day, or four years, but it doesn’t matter how long it was, only that you can remember it when you need it, like a photograph in your pocket. It will give you the clarity and strength to move forward in a direction that honors you—the real you—full of hope and possibility.
VEERA HIRANANDANI is the author of How to Find What You’re Not Looking For (Kokila) and The Night Diary (Kokila), which has received many awards including the 2019 Newbery Honor, the 2019 Walter Dean Myers Honor Award, and the 2018 Malka Penn Award for Human Rights in Children’s Literature. She is also the author of The Whole Story of Half a Girl (Yearling), which was named a Sydney Taylor Notable Book and a South Asia Book Award Highly Commended Book, and the chapter book series Phoebe G. Green (Penguin Workshop). She earned her MFA in fiction writing at Sarah Lawrence College. A former book editor at Simon & Schuster, she now teaches creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College’s Writing Institute and is working on her next novel.