I looked through my fingers, which I had spread across my eyes so I would not see what was before me. I closed the crack of my hands so I could only see darkness. I was five years old, covering my eyes with hands that smelled like sweat and plastic, from clutching my lunchbox with such ferocity, before I had to put my lunchbox away in my new cubbyhole.
             I was suffering through the first day of kindergarten. I did not want to look at my fellow students. I was sitting on a small, hard, uncomfortable chair at a tiny table in the back of the class. It was the first day that I had ever been separated so long from my parents and my home. The classroom smelled like modeling clay and newly waxed floors. It was filled with bright pictures of the alphabet and colors. But these pictures seemed sad to me, because I was away from the familiar surroundings of my room. I was trying to pretend that I wasn't in the room, but far away in a more comfortable place. The teacher was talking. I heard her voice say things as if she were far away, speaking in a tunnel. She said she hoped everyone enjoyed their time in their new school, and that we were expected to be quiet and learn. She was a soft, gentle looking woman with long, curly hair.
             But I remember thinking, 'she is not my mother.' I did not know any of the other children around me. Some of them were already friends, because they had gone to the same nursery school, or because they came from the same neighborhood. Some of the boys, when the teacher was not looking, whispered things to one another. Some of the girls linked their pinkies, to show that they were best friends. I had no one to whisper to, or look to as a protector. My mother had told me that she was coming back. But in this alien environment, I did not feel secure. Nothing was familiar, and the hours that I would have to spend away from home seemed like torture. I looked up at the clock. I could not really tell time, ...