Nellie

~ Stereotypes ~

I surreptitiously observed the new girl, Nellie, as she walked into the dining hall. She was led by Pam, the director of Olive Tree Girls’ Boarding School, a residential program for girls. It was my first month as an intern at Olive Tree and I still experienced a jumble of emotions—a little nervousness, some sadness, a spark of hope—each time a new girl arrived. This time, as I continued my covert study of the newest intake, curiosity was foremost on my mind.

Nellie had a pale, round face, like the moon, with narrow lips and squinty eyes - as if caught in a permanent grimace. Her hair was impossibly black, cut anime-character style, with bangs and a jagged finish. When she turned her head, I noticed the single streak of blonde in the back of her hair, bold and sudden, like a flash of lightning against a stark, night sky. I had never seen anyone like her before.

Over the next few days, I attempted to discern Nellie by osmosis, as I’d done over the past few weeks when a new girl came through. The girls who came to Olive Tree typically shared a similar resume: drug or alcohol abuse, instances of violence, self-sabotaging…any representative gamut of behaviors associated with “delinquency”. Nellie might have participated in any, or all, or none of these things—I could not tell. She did not wear a stereotype well.

***

~ An Aside ~

I remember the first time I discovered I was Black. Well, it wasn’t a particular point in time, per se. More like a gradual dawning, precipitated by a series of moments in my first couple of weeks as an international student at John Sheppard College.

Moment 1: Everytime I filled out a form and had to indicate my racial identity. This was new. I’d grown up in a fairly homogenous community back in Nigeria, and there simply was never any need to describe myself as “Black”.

Moment 2: When Christopher, the kind Resident Director in my dormitory wished me “Happy Kwanzaa” with a smile and a flourish. I smiled back awkwardly, then went to do a quick Google search to figure out what I’d just said “thank you” to.

Moment 3: When Sherry from across the hall asked me to join the Soul Sistas Club. “It’s a brutal world out there, you know, and us sisters gotta watch each others’ backs.” I stole a quick glance behind me and wondered what untold dangers loomed in this strange and wonderful new world I’d stepped into.

The Grand Moment was during a group activity in my Self and Identity class. We were supposed to create a dating ad for the “classifieds” section of a hypothetical newspaper. My colleagues read out their ads in turn:

“White, single male looking for love...”

“Blonde, single and ready to mingle....”

“True Southern Belle looking to find my soulmate…”

My turn came:

“Adventurous foodie in Ohio.…” Realization dawned as I read my ad out loud. In someone else’s world, I was Black. And it mattered. Someone, somewhere would want to know what color skin, hair, or eyes to visualize as they read my ad.

*

I told myself my curiosity about the girls at Olive Tree was justified. After all, how could I help them if I did not know their stories?

“Love them,” Pam regularly said whenever we gathered for our daily staff meetings. “Just love the girls, that’s really all they need.”

One day, I uncovered, with a blush, how inadequate was my notion of love. Is it in knowing what a person has done or can do that love is formed? Is it in knowing who they are or who they could be? What more reason could there be to love another human, than the simple fact that she is human?

***

~ Second Chances ~

Nellie ran away twice while she was at Olive Tree, once by herself, and another time, with a group of girls. The first occurrence was shortly after her arrival. She threw three or four choice words at me and another worker, Jael, before she took off. Jael and I found Nellie a few hours later, a couple of miles from the campus, sitting in the dark on the side of the road.

“Noooo!” she yelled, when she saw me step out of the car. “Go away! Leave me alone.”

As I approached her, I noticed she held a stick in her hand, presumably to fend off preying creatures, man or beast. At first, I wondered if she would hit me with the stick, but I noticed her head was lowered, like a child spent after a fruitless tantrum. No, this was not a fighting stance, nor was mine. I sat down next to her and commiserated with her in silence.

“Come, let’s go back,” I said eventually.

Jael had left the engine of the car running. Nellie and I climbed in, and we rode off calmly as if this were merely a routine pick up at a school bus stop. When we arrived on campus, Nellie asked for a hug before she went in to rejoin the other girls for the night activity.

For K.M.

It takes the wise

To recognize

The significance

Of a second chance

A flower dying

Could live again

If love finds it

And deems it fit

To give water

To a dying flower

*

At Olive Tree, I learned about love that is unsolicited, unconditional, and often, unrequited. I learned to love Nellie not in spite of who she was; not in view of who she was becoming; but simply because she was.

Within a few weeks, Nellie began to open up—or at least, she gave the appearance of doing so. Her intelligent eyes seemed to always hold a challenge, and her smiles, quite frankly, gave me the creeps. They were cryptic at best, and decidedly devilish, it appeared at times. Also, they were rare; so whenever they showed up, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach that Nellie was up to something. My intuition was often right.

The second time Nellie ran away, I had seen it coming, heralded by one too many secretive smiles in my general direction. Still, I was disappointed and frustrated. She returned by herself, bruised and filthy from wandering in the surrounding forests, like a prodigal child. I bandaged her wounds and bit my tongue.

Frustration was a staple as I daily gained an education in loving unconditionally. But the lessons served me well. As I watched the girls at Olive Tree step forward, stumble, rise, and flourish, I grew, too . . . shedding off years of cultivated biases like leaves at the scent of autumn.

For L.W.

“Blossom”

First, a thought is planted

Like a farmer’s seed

Then, the heart is watered

With all the love it needs

Then comes the pain unwanted

Pruning, clearing of weeds

Voila! A flower’s blossomed

It’s beautiful, indeed!

I remember the first time I began to realize Nellie was changing. The girls were returning from their afternoon exercises, and I stood watching as they made their way to their rooms. Nellie bestowed a smile on me as she walked past. Her eyes seemed brighter and wider—letting in the sun and the world—than they had been when I first met her. The smile was disconcerting in a different way: it was genuine and without guile.

*

When my internship came to an end, I wrote a letter and a poem for each of the girls at Olive Tree. Later on, one of my former coworkers told me she had been there when Nellie read the letter I’d written her. “After she read your letter, Nellie smiled at me and said, ‘She knows me so well.’”

***

I left Olive Tree a different human. I did get to know the girls -- not from reading their files or listening to confessions, but from braiding their hair and letting them teach me how to dance the Cotton-Eye Joe.

I am better for it. Every pair of eyes that conceals or tells a story, every stranger who ignores or acknowledges me, every acquaintance who misjudges me reminds me that mine is the privilege to love.