SOMETIMES SITUATIONS UNEXPECTEDLY work in my favor.

My newly hired ninth grade English teacher, Jeannette Davis, was an African-American woman. Having a black teacher made me feel a little less odd. In the Park School tradition, she helped students hone critical thinking skills. We read works from authors of color, including Chinua Achebe and Lorraine Hansberry. Being exposed to works by non-white authors, one student complained, “I feel like this is turning into a black studies course.” Jeannette acknowledged his displeasure, and continued exposing us to literature new to the Park School curriculum.

Lorraine Hansberry taught me important life lessons through her play, A Raisin in the Sun. The Younger family seemed more like actual people than fictional characters. I identified with Beneatha Younger. She reflected the energy, stubbornness and even self-absorption I displayed with my family. Carefully attending to Beneatha’s epiphanies as a gifted, young, black woman, I internalized the importance of persistence and being non-judgmental. She held fast to her dream of becoming a doctor, despite the financial challenge she faced after her older brother, Walter, lost the money reserved for her medical school tuition in an unauthorized liquor store venture. After a tirade in which she labeled her brother worthless, her mother reproved her. “When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got wherever he is.”

However, the book that impacted me most that year was Sylvia Plath’s novel, The Bell Jar. Esther Greenwood was a brilliant Smith College student whose life was disrupted by manic depression, now known as bipolar disorder. She underwent shock therapy after an unsuccessful suicide attempt. By this time, I was quite adept at personalizing literature. Esther and I shared a similar sensibility. In the back of my mind, I believed what happened to her, could happen to me.

Jeanette told us the book was a fictionalized account of Plath’s experience. We read her poetry along with the novel. A few years later, I performed Plath’s “Mad Girl’s Love Song,” as a spoken word poem. I was horrified to learn she committed suicide in her early thirties. After turning on the gas oven in her London flat, she placed her head inside, asphyxiating herself.

The nuns had already convinced me suicide was the unpardonable sin. They intoned, “If you kill yourself you cannot go to heaven. You will not go to purgatory. God does not forgive people who’ve killed themselves. People who kill themselves are consigned to hell.” I doubted I would ever commit suicide because I WAS DETERMINED TO AVOID SPENDING AN ETERNITY IN HELL.

Besides critically reading novels, plays and poetry, our ninth grade curriculum included an advertising unit. We studied ways in which specific words are employed to drive consumerism and influence belief systems. I created a personal slogan, I am different and unique. I repeated this internal mantra, attempting to convince myself not fitting in was just fine. When my peers would say, in the vernacular of the day, “Charita, you’re a trip,” my casual response became, “I’m not a trip, I’m a journey.” I gave myself permission to live within my own parameters.

At Park, each high school student selected an advisor. I chose Jeannette. In a one on one conversation, I shared my assessment of the financial burden I placed on my parents by attending Park. She gently informed me, “Whether or not your parents can afford to send you to a private school is their decision as parents. As a child, it is your job to learn all you can while you are here. Whether or not they can afford to send you here is not your concern.” After our meeting, she called my mom and had a long conversation with her about the things I had shared.

That Saturday, Mama, my sister Valerie, and I sat down in our living room to talk about my feelings. Although I no longer spoke so quickly when agitated that I had to “suck back spit to keep from drooling,” in the words of my cousin, Lela, I still exhibited quite a range of emotion. Histrionically, I confessed to my mom, “I know you can’t afford to send me to Park.” For emphasis, I added “I feel poor when I’m at school.” That comment launched a conversation that forced my mother to examine her role in developing my poverty mindset. She stopped asserting I was a poor little black girl. As always, Valerie encouraged me, “You should be proud that you’re smart enough to get a scholarship to go to private school.”

That afternoon, I lay down to rest my nerves without anyone suggesting I do so.

I returned to school on Monday, feeling a little calmer. I reconciled myself to the fact I wouldn’t be leaving Park.

To encourage me, Jeanette gave me a ticket to a matinee performance of The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, an African-American modern dance company at the Lyric Theater in Baltimore. It was the first time I had seen a live, professional dance performance. Watching The Nutcracker on television didn’t count. I sat spellbound throughout the performance. This artistically excellent group of black dancers impressed me. A decade or so before, companies like this did not exist. I was so inspired that I took modern dance classes, beginning in tenth grade.

Jeanette left Park at the beginning of my tenth grade year. She was a godsend, another teacher who bolstered my flagging self-esteem. She and Marian Dixon, an African-American woman from my church encouraged me during my early high school years.

Marian Dixon was one of my mother’s teacher friends. She attended St. Ambrose Church and was a founding member of Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD.) BUILD is a not-for-profit, interfaith, multiracial organization created to make the city of Baltimore more livable. The organization promoted change within people, and Mrs. Dixon supported change within me.

When I shared how difficult it was for me to study in my bustling household she created a study space for me in her home down the street from mine. She took me along when running errands and taught me how to sew. Respecting my intellect, she engaged me in meaningful discussions. Spending time with her underscored my value. By listening to me, Mrs. Dixon taught me that my opinions were worth listening to.