I loved Mrs. Erickson, my third grade teacher at Washington Elementary, but it was clear she didn’t have all the answers. I can see, looking back, what she was probably trying to do, but still… She wanted us, as young girls, to get interested in the sciences, so she grouped us together and told us about exciting careers in medicine, geology, chemistry, why “we could even be astronauts”, she cheered. My hand shot up in the air — so eager to speak, I crossed my left arm over my chest, trying to keep my right arm from, well, shooting into space. She pointed her stick at me, letting all the words out of my mouth. “We’ve been playing it for years!” I said. “What’s that?” She asked. “Fashion astronaut. My mom and I play fashion astronaut almost every day!” She tightened her lips and closed her eyes, shaking her head in dismissal. “That’s not a thing,” she said, staring back at the blackboard.
“Well of course it’s a thing! I know what I’ve done and hadn’t done,” I thought to myself, head hrrrumphing in my hands. My mother had never lied to me. We WERE fashion astronauts. I got ready with her each morning. As she accessorized she explained how this scarf or this necklace would put this certain outfit right over the top! Launching it above all others. We were indeed astronauts! No one could tell me otherwise.
I took the bus home, rolling the assurance of my scarf between my fingers. I stomped down the gravel driveway and waited for my mom to come home from work. I told her everything — it all came out faster and higher than I hoped, but she had become very efficient at deciphering my “we’ve been wronged” vernacular. She smiled. “That’s the thing about being an astronaut,” she said, “we don’t really need anyone’s approval.” I smiled too. And knowing this, didn’t we just go a little bit higher!
