About a Girl

It's 8:20 p.m., and I have just woken up. For a second, my brain misplaces the moment and I think it is morning; then my eyes adjust to the damp darkness, I hear the familiar clink of the fan, and feel that my arm--contorted into an awkward sort of backwards-C underneath Olivia's sleeping body--has fallen asleep. It has taken two storybooks, one made-up fairy tale, a haphazard explanation of why Pocahontas is able to speak English, and an even more haphazard rendition of "Part of Your World" to get to this point, and I don't want to spoil it by making any sudden movements... so, gently, I slither my arm out from underneath Olivia's torso and army-crawl off the bed, across the room, and down the stairs to the couch. 8:26 p.m. Whew.

I don't know how I got here, exactly, except that I answered an ad. I answered an ad to be a nanny for two months in Bali and Thailand, to be responsible for the care and well-being of a little person whom I had never met, in the hopes that--by doing so--I'd be able to afford extra time in Asia without resorting to selling blood. I expected there to be some Disney, at least one occasion of panicky tears, and more than one occasion of utter bewilderment. What I did not expect, however--what no amount of college, Adventures in Babysitting, or imagination could provide me with--was the soul of this little person, the sometimes absolute absorption of myself into her, the handing over of a piece of my own soul that would leave me gasping for air in the moments when she disappeared behind a rack of clothing, or walked too close to the traffic whizzing by. How can any of us ever expect a love so pure? Two months ago, I was anticipating a babysitting gig: a chance to travel and do yoga and prove to the Pre-K sector that I'm not above a little make believe. Instead, I got a lesson in love. I happily picked the bugs out of her orange juice, and she let me have bites of her roasted corn. A little girl scribbled on the walls of my innermost being, and I accidentally got the most functional relationship I've ever had.

I want to remember. I want to remember here so that I don't forget.

When most people walk, Olivia skips. Usually after she's received a piece of good news, headed toward a playdate and the promise of refined sugar, she gets a running start and then her legs sort of fly up in front of her; her upper body, suspended a millisecond behind, always takes a second to catch up to the anticipation of her knees. When she's disappointed, she crumples. Her whole face takes on the quality of one who has just been informed that they've lost ten mil in the stock market. And because she is five, and five year olds are sponges, each day promises an assortment of new facial tics from the kids at school. Last week, she inherited the quizzical lip-raise of her good friend Ella; which unfortunately, watered down and adapted to her tiny face, made her look more like a stroke victim than anything else. "Hey Olivia, do you want daikon in the stir fry?" Pause. Lip twitch, cheek mush. "What's daikon?" Moments like this, I can only laugh and remember that for one whole week in the fifth grade, I thought my social status would miraculously take off if I acquired Christine L.'s nose-smush. I never did, and it never did. Olivia, however, is above such tomfoolery--she adapts to the appearances of her peers for one reason and one reason only: to seem grown-up. "I don't WANT to walk anymore," she told me once. She stuck out her hips, planted her hands, and gave a finger snap that would have made the drag queens in Bangkok tremble in admiration. "Carry me." I didn't know whether to be horrified, or duck into a phone booth and make the next appointment with Dakota Fanning's talent agent. In any case, I was left to wonder: where the hell does she learn these things? And what, God help her, is she going to learn from me?

If I'm unlucky, she'll learn that life's happiness can be traced to the ability to correctly remember a song. Lying in bed at night after she'd showered, brushed her teeth, and asked at least half a dozen irrelevant questions about people I've never heard of, we began what I like to refer to as the Long Kiss Goodnight. It would start off as "read me one story," which quickly turned to "no, I said two stories," which snowballed into "MY MOM AND DAD ALWAYS MAKE UP A STORY AFTER WE READ STORIES" and then "how does that one song go? Sing to me." I'd roll onto my back, sticky with the Thai heat, and make a desperate plea for my brain to play the Pocahontas soundtrack.

"Erm... you think you know whatever laaand you laaand on, the earth is just a dead thing you can claaaaim...." 

Silence on her end, which I mistook for approval. 

"But I know every rock and... um, leaf, and leaf-a, has a... light, has a thingy, has a..." 

Then, without fail--whether Pocahontas or The Wizard of Oz--my pint-sized employer would leap up, hover her curly head inches above my face, and hiss: "that's not how it goes." And so it went. Olivia, who can't yet recite the alphabet without saying 'emanemo' instead of 'l-m-n-o,' busted my balls for forgetting the words to Disney songs. Every. Single. Night.

On the other hand, if I'm lucky, Olivia will inherit my talents for remaining calm in a throng of Thai preschoolers or starting impromptu dance parties. The latter is the one I'm especially proud of. No matter the day, no matter where our moods fell on the attitude-barometer, Olivia and I were always able to drop what we were doing and flail around to the Lion King soundtrack; and for that, I am eternally grateful. She'd ask me to show her ballet moves, and I learned to anticipate the glint in her eye when she was planning to fling herself at my stomach... expecting me to catch and raise her, Patrick Swayze style, over my head. For better or for worse, I also introduced her to The Nutcracker, attempting to impart the same awe and reverence (later giving way to fear and remorse, thus completing the ballet circle-of-life) that I felt at her age; but alas, my efforts were drowned out by the novelty of men in tights.
"Why he always wears the tight things?"
"It's part of the costume," I told her.
"When do they not wear tights?"
"They always wear tights."
"Oh. And why they always wear ballet shoes... like when they walk on the street?"
"They don't." I stared at the screen. Baryshnikov did six pirouettes, and Olivia didn't notice. I tried not to take it personally.
"They wear glass slippers?"
"Sure."
"What about boys, what do they wear?"
"They just wear regular shoes."
"But they are wearing the tight things?"
"Yes."
"Oh." Pause. "I can kind of see his johnson."

So, yeah. My attempt to introduce Olivia to the delicacies of classical ballet got overshadowed by the Nutcracker's poorly clothed nuts, and what should have been silent captivation fell prey to the Question Phase. In case you didn't know--and apparently, this is across the board--five year olds ask more questions than the average paparazzi. On crack. Whether we were walking to school or watching a movie, hardly a single action went by that did not inspire some sort of inquisition from Olivia: during The Nutcracker, she got hung up on the relationship between Clara and the Prince.
"But are they married?"
"No, Olivia, they're little kids.
"But are they GONNA get married?"

During story time, I would say she asked anywhere from ten to fifteen questions per page.
"Who is that? What are they doing? Why her hand is like that? What is she pointing at? What are those? Why is she wearing them? Where did she get them? But... why did he do that? What happens next?"
And always, she ended with her favorite question of all.
"Is that man and woman in love?"

What could I tell her? That I don't know? When she asked me if I've ever been in love and, if so, why I'm not married, was I allowed to tell her that it's socially inappropriate and rude to ask and that I have the right to remain silent on my love life AND that of the Little Mermaid AND that of the checkout girl at Tesco Lotus? The answer is no. Ask anyone and they'll tell you that living with a kid, privacy is one of the first things you check at the door. "What's PRIVACY?" Olivia asked me once, poking my thighs with her thumbs. I was sitting on the toilet. "What are you doing? You pee a lot. Why are you using so much toilet paper?" Pause. "I can see your butt."

And at times, it was all I could do not to hurl myself through the sliding glass door and run screaming down the street. At times, I would have done anything to be away from her; and the thing is, I'm sure the feeling was mutual. After spending enough hours as her guardian--not only her friend, but also the person responsible for making sure she doesn't shove raisins up her nose when no one is looking--I watched myself become the stern, authoritative nanny in times of crisis. Sometimes I didn't have the patience to come up with a story about why we were leaving; it was past her bedtime, and we just were. I said things like, "Olivia, don't make me repeat it one more time." (Who IS that person? Where did she come from?) Olivia, sensing my seriousness, would furrow her brow and retreat, and I would feel like someone had yanked out my heart. That's the thing about kids: when their light shines on you it's so full, so deliciously unfiltered, that it puts you on top of the world. When they shut it off, though, it's extreme: no grey area. No almost-love. Over time, I learned to look out the window until she forgot why she was mad at me, or until exhaustion won out over the you're-not-my-mommy fog... and eventually, she'd place her head in my lap and fall asleep, and I'd fall back in love with her, and we'd do the same thing all over again the next day. Routine.

We loved our routines. Every morning in Ubud, she would creep in while I was only half-awake and stand at the foot of my bed, whispering to herself, until I extended a sleepy arm and pulled her in so she could crawl all over me. "GOOD MORNINGGGG," she'd tell my ear. "TELL ME A STORY." I made her breakfast and dinner, and she made me watch Thumbelina four times. Every day, she'd ask me at least one question I wasn't prepared to answer--and every day, she took my hesitation as a launching pad for creativity.
"If someone looks like a girl but is really a boy, how do I know?"
Shit. "Well, you can ask them."
"Are you a boy?"
"No," I answered, keeping in mind the fact that--in Olivia's world--suspecting me of having a penis was equivalent to suspecting me of being a six-headed alien.
"But how can I know?"
"You're just gonna have to trust me, kid."

Olivia, Olivia, Olivia. Five years old, fiercely female; obsessed with princesses, but appreciative of the characters who have a punk-rock side. After all, she has one as well. By the very fact that she has been traveling her whole life, Olivia has tolerance and sense of non-attachment that most adults strive for. I've already mentioned her quiet acceptance of death, but she's also decidedly un-squeamish; bathrooms, in particular, are her specialty. One time, I walked her into a Thai stall and immediately regretted it. Mind you, I'm no stranger to disconcerting toilets... my stepsister's bachelorette party, for example, made peeing into the (balmy) -20 degree weather outside seem preferable to touching the sink. And at least that one didn't have puddles. Olivia, however, didn't seem to mind; she just asked me to hold the door closed while she squatted over the quasi-hole in the questionable ground. "Are you still holding the door?" "Yep," I answered, and made a mental note to add that moment to the list of things I have learned from her.

There were times during this journey when I would talk to my peers back home and be met with a surprising bout of Liberal Arts Post-Grad Guilt; a lovely mental chatter that goes something like, you're not using your degree you're not using your degree you're not using your degree. But what does that even mean? Since taking this job, I have been offered numerous other nannying positions. Being here has made me realize that Scripps, as much as I love it, brainwashed me into thinking that the only worthy jobs are the ones that are constantly intellectually stimulating and draining. A big change occurred when I realized that these parents, while not asking me to unpack Judith Butler's theories of performativity, were willing to trust me with the life of their child. Their child! Their most important thing, and they liked me enough to believe I wasn't going to forget them at the gas station or microwave their plastic spoons.

Olivia. I'm away from her now, and there's so much I want to ask. Will I run into her again one day down the road, when she's lost her baby teeth and has seen something PG-13? What will I possibly say to her--that I know she likes to have an arm draped over her while dreams? That her favorite color is magenta, she likes Indonesian coconuts but not Thai ones, and that I know how to recognize when her breathing changes and she has finally fallen asleep? There were moments when I'd look at her and be on fire with all the things I wished I could tell her. We're exactly the same, you and me, I'd think. I'm you. I remember you. I remember me when I was you. I'm the same. I haven't changed. Because I do. I remember.

I know how she breathes, because I know the way her head fits into my chest while she's searching for sleep. "Tell me a story," she whispers.

A special thing just happened. I got to spend time with a person who will never again be five years old. I realized it when we were at a playdate at Ella's house; Ella, who is seven, and expected me to talk to her the way you talk to kids after they've exited the 'little' phase. With kids that age, it's all about 'us against them': you earn points by separating yourself from the herd of (shudder) GROWN-UPS and acting as though you're constantly in on the joke that they don't even know they're telling. Anyhow, when Olivia asked Ella if she wanted to play Cinderella, Ella crinkled her nose. "What's that?" she asked--and I saw Olivia's eyes dart around confusedly. It was then that I realized she's still a little girl: she's not a kid yet. She toes the line and occasionally crosses it, but she's poised at that mushy place between phases... not unlike myself, at a different crossroads, just a little bit further down the road. She's still a little girl, and sometimes I forgot that; but then her heart would break, as little girls' hearts break, and I'd remember.

Olivia. Thank you, dear one, for everything you've given me. I simultaneously loved and hated all our games of "I Spy," and I think it's adorable that you thought a sycamore tree was called a jicama tree. Once, during our first week together in Samui, I turned to you and said: "Hey Olivia! I haven't washed my hair since 2012." You looked at me quite sincerely, crinkled your nose, and said, "you're disgusting." Then you returned to your coloring. I think you're hilarious.

I think you're beautiful.

I think you're going to do something wild and magnificent with your life.

Times when I was tired, so tired that words tasted fuzzy in my mouth and I would have given my kneecaps for a cup of coffee, you wanted me to play with you. Sometimes I didn't want to. The thing is, you went ahead and played anyhow; you taught me that life is play, that this world is a crazy, wondrous place. You'd get up and dance until I had no choice but to join you--the sunset light coming in through the long windows, "Easy to Remember, Hard to Forget" playing on the speakers overhead. We'd dance and I'd see you. So, so easy to remember, dear girl... believe me, you will be hard to forget. I will never forget your five years old. Here's hoping you won't forget me either.

"Tell me a story."

9:43 p.m., and my heart is yours.