When I was in third grade I had a remarkable experience which may very well have changed my life. It was a muggy Wednesday afternoon near the end of the school year and we were doing whatever it was we were meant to be doing on that day. Reading perhaps? Writing? Arithmetic? I don’t remember exactly but I do remember that it was stifling out and the windows in the back of the classroom were open. I was hot, bored and uncomfortable. Also, due to the heat and humidity in the room, my sweaty, shorts-clad legs were sticking to the uncomfortable plastic seat. Our teacher, Mrs. Fredericks, had turned the overhead fluorescent lights off and the room had a dim, green, underwater feeling. My elementary school did not have fans or air conditioning and the hot still air, as well as the bugs that occasionally flew in and buzzed around the ceiling, gave the entire day an oppressive mood. It felt like everything was happening in slow motion.
My classmates and I were a particularly rambunctious bunch. We were considered a “bad class”. In other words, we gave poor sweet Mrs. Fredericks hell. I’m sure she was grateful that in a few short weeks she would be rid of us and our high-spirited boisterousness forever.
My seat was at the very front of the class and I can’t remember why. Usually the worst of the worst sat up front so that the teacher could keep an eye on them. For whatever reason, that was my assigned seat that year. Front and center, with little room to misbehave. I was a good student in those days but also a bit mischievous and being in a class of other kids with that same predilection brought my dark side to light. On that day, as Mrs. Fredericks got increasingly hot…and hot under the collar over her wayward charges…the class just acted up more. I had to turn around in my chair to get a better look at the troublemakers and when I did I saw that Geoff Barker was in the process of loading his pen-straw (he had removed the thin ink tube from the center) with a motherlode of small white spit balls.
“That’s it!” yelled Mrs. Fredericks, suddenly looking furious and quite haggard. She was probably in her mid-forties at the time but to me she seemed ancient. “I’ve had it!”
In a silent rage she marched up the center aisle, from the back of the class where she had been looking over a student’s work, to the blackboard at the front of the room. She pulled her oversized woven bag off the back of her teacher’s chair and fished around in its vast depths. Finally she found what she was looking for and pulled it out of her bag triumphantly. She turned to face us, holding aloft what appeared to be a medium-sized Ziplock bag stuffed with popcorn. She held the bag up to us and waved it back and forth the way a magician would wave his hand over a bunny in a hat.
“Okay class,” she whispered in a low voice and I could tell she was trying with all her might not to lose her shit. “Today we are going to do a small experiment. A little challenge. And the winner of this challenge will get this bag of popcorn as their reward.” I heard P.J. Walsh, a big troublemaker, whistle a slow “who cares?” from his desk at the side of the room but Mrs. Fredericks did not hear him. Or if she did, she paid him no mind.
“This is today’s challenge. Whichever one of you can be good and quiet and pay attention for the rest of the day will win, as a reward, this bag of popcorn. We will start the challenge now!” and with that she rang the little bell that sat on her desk and that she used several times a week to signify to us that one of her endless “pop quizzes” was either starting or ending.
She placed the popcorn down on her chair and scraped her damp sweaty hair into a ponytail. Then she picked up the bag and set it down on the very front of her desk. It was quite close to me and I convinced myself that I could smell the delicious, salty buttery-ness of it through the plastic from where I was sitting. I wanted that popcorn as badly as I had ever wanted anything. It. Was. On!
There was a real goody-goody in my class. A red-haired, pale and scrawny, goody-goody cry-baby and I knew that she wanted that popcorn as badly as I did. There were also several other kids in the class who always paid attention and never made a peep, so the competition for this bag of popcorn was going to be quite steep. But I wanted that popcorn. This was the 1970s and the popcorn, like a lot of other food from that era, was so highly processed that I’m sure it could have outlived us all…even the cockroaches. It had Twinkie-level shelf life, of that I was sure. My mother was very health conscious in those days. Which is interesting, because she was also an active alcoholic. She was kind of a hippie when it came to what she fed her children. Everything had to be free from additives or dyes or “plain old poison” she told us. We often shopped at those weird bulk health food stores that smelled bad and had jaundiced-looking staff floating listlessly down the aisles seeming lost and decidedly not healthy. We also had bean sprouts growing all over our kitchen counters which gave the kitchen a funky, earthy scent.
My friends brought Fluffernutter and jelly on Wonder bread sandwiches to school with a package of Ding-Dongs and a Thermos of Kool Aid. My mother sent me off with a small sandwich of cashew butter and spouts on dense black bread and a small, misshapen apple for dessert. If I was thirsty I could drink the rust-tinged water from the water fountain outside of the gym. “That’s what it’s there for,” my mother assured me, “so thirsty kids will have something to drink.” But I never drank from it. Instead I would cadge sips of toxic red Kool Aid from my pals.
Needless to say this popcorn would be an unheard of treat. Junk food! I felt, for the first time in my life, the quiet force of real determination steal over me. It felt like a distinct energy that I never knew I had. While engaged in this energetic focusing I felt a refreshing and bright clarity. As I felt this force flow in I glanced over at Miss Goody-Goody and I knew that she wanted that popcorn as badly as I did. We glared at each other like feral cats about to rip each other to shreds. But then I saw, to my horror, that everyone wanted that popcorn. The kid behind Goody-Goody wanted it. As did the kids on either side of me. As did, in fact, the rest of the class. This was not going to be easy. Or was it?
This all went down after lunch. I remember looking up at the clock and figuring that I had about three hours to really buckle down or, in today's parlance, to grind.
If I really wanted that popcorn I would have to settle down, pay attention, and focus on nothing else but getting my work done. I could not daydream. I could not procrastinate. I would have to keep my mouth shut and my nine-year-old mind laser-focused.
So I that’s what I did. I was aware that I had to take my attention and train it on the task at hand. I could not allow my attention to get hijacked or distracted or that popcorn would be lost. About twenty minutes into the challenge a few of the boys in back started messing around, making noise. I could hear them kicking each other across the aisle, a favorite pastime. They were hell-bent on trying to distract the other kids and get them in trouble. Although I heard the laughter and whispers I paid no attention and did not turn around. I did not even look up from my grammar book when Mrs. Fredericks, exasperated and flushed, grabbed P.J. Walsh by the ear and dragged him out into the hallway where he was told to sit alone and “think about his naughtiness” for a full fifteen minutes. If he “acted up one more time” he would be sent to the principal's office. Mrs. Fredericks was pissed off! Which inevitably just made everyone giggle and act up even more.
At around 3:15, fifteen minutes before we were to be let out, Mrs. Fredericks held up the bag of popcorn and waved it once again back and forth in front of us in a hypnotizing motion. “Okay class,” she said, the excitement of expectation tangible in her voice. “Do you know who is getting this reward for a job well done?” A wise guy sitting behind me yelled out “P.J. Walsh?” at which everyone laughed. Even Mrs. Fredericks grinned, the first time I’d seen her smile all day. “No, not P.J. This popcorn,” she said dramatically while walking over to my desk, “goes to Miss Blenderhead for paying attention all afternoon!” With that she plopped the bag down on my desk with a flourish.
I was stunned. I looked over at Miss Goody-Goody Cry-Baby and as if on cue she welled up. I felt a little bad seeing her tears but not bad enough to give her the bag.
To this day I remain amazed. I was not amazed that I had won the popcorn. I was amazed at how easy it had been. All I had to do was focus. To grind. I had to fight my inclination to get distracted and my desire to act up. I had kept my mouth shut tight the entire afternoon which for me, especially at that age, was not easy. I had to stop being a big baby and caring about the fact that I was hot or sticky or bored or thirsty. I had to settle down, pay attention, and focus. And I had. For several hours. During those hours I found, to my utter astonishment, that it wasn't even that hard. And for that focus, for simply paying attention, I was amply rewarded.
I’ve never forgotten that day and what it taught me. And I’ll certainly never forget the words that Mrs. Fredericks said to me as I left the classroom on that long-ago day. “I’m very proud of you,” she told me. “You showed me a side of yourself this afternoon that I didn’t know you had.”
“Neither did I,” I told her quite honestly.
She smiled and knelt down so that we were almost eye to eye. “Well, let's try to remember what happened today. If you can remember what you gain by really paying attention it will serve you well in life.” With that she patted me on the shoulder and said “just remember that it’s always better to pay attention than to seek it.”
As I meandered home in the heat, avoiding all my well-traveled shortcuts, taking my own sweet time and savoring my popcorn, I realized that Mrs. Fredericks was right. It is better to pay attention than to seek it.
I had a big bag of delicious popcorn to prove it, didn’t I?
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