A Little Beauty

There is this little book of poetry that she used to read. The book was called Forever Poetic, something like that. It was not anything special. She didn’t really understand any of it. But she read the thing every night before she fell asleep. When she’d finish, she’d start again. She kept hoping to understand. She kept hoping to uncover the book’s secrets. In reality, though, there was only one passage written throughout the entire book that ever held any position of importance to her. It had not been chosen for the compilation. It had not been scribed by some classic poet. In fact, it was not a poem at all. It was a handwritten note. The note sat in the upper right hand corner of the very first page. It was a note entrusting the book to her, a note written by a very important person.

Judy did not happen to be very artistic. She was simply not interested. She found herself uncomfortable when embarking on any kind of interpretation. She just felt stupid. No, Judy was made for other things. Judy considered herself to be an athlete. She could play better than most boys she knew at almost any sport she could think of. The habit was simply natural.

School, to Judy, was something best avoided. The people there were different from Judy. One time some girls had offered Judy a make over after school. She had reluctantly turned down the invitation in favor of a basketball game. The girls laughed and turned away in judgmental acceptance. Judy knew then that she didn’t have a place within typicality. The ideologies of school held no interest for Judy. She rarely completed her homework. She never bothered with the readings. In fact, she had only ever read one book from cover to cover. But she never read it for school.

Her Father had not known how to raise a girl. What he knew were boys. He knew barbecues, roughhousing, and, of course, sports. Dolls and make up were too foreign for the man to grasp. So he stuck to what he knew. Judy was glad for him though; she enjoyed being an athlete. She enjoyed being a tomboy. She liked to think that she enjoyed who she was. She didn’t care that the other kids laughed at her. She didn’t care that the boys thought her unattractive and the girls thought her unappealing. Outside of sports, there was little that she cared about at all. Her father was one. The book was another.

There was this one time, when Judy was in third grade, that she had spoken up in class. They had been reading poetry. It was some poem about a cat. The cat had gotten lost and the cat’s owner, a small boy, had desperately wanted to find the poor animal. After a while, though, the boy had given up in sorrow. Judy was appalled with the boy’s behavior. How could the boy just give up on something that he loved? She had thought back on a poem she had read in her book. It was something about losing one’s self in love and not losing sight. Something like that. Judy raised her hand, with these thoughts in mind, thinking she had finally reached some kind of understanding. The teacher then called on Judy, and Judy expressed her disgust. She spoke of her avid disappointment with the little boy’s decision; she ranted about his horrible crime of losing track of that which he loved. Judy had been so worked up, that she had not realized the extent of her emotion. Soon the class began to laugh at her immense release and her running tears. After a few moments of mockery, Judy ran from the classroom. After that, Judy didn’t take herself seriously anymore.

So, Judy read and read. After a while she had most of the poems memorized. Although, she refused to think too intently in their regard. Why should she? She was just some stupid athlete. She had no business interpreting. But the book was hers, and it was given to her with the intent of being read. And maybe it would tell her about that person she loved so much, but simply didn’t know. That love that she had never known.

A note was scrawled in the upper right hand corner of the very first page.

To my Judy,

Here is some beauty to carry with you always,

Love,

Mom

A note was scrawled before she died. And Judy always wondered. And Judy always carried some beauty with her, even if she didn’t understand. Even if she never ever could.

A guy