My father will never believe in me, and my mother has yet to tell me. I think the first person to believe in me was the first person to give me a job.
It was me, I guess, by way of my father. I was in high school and a teacher and I were feuding; she was trying to kick me out of her class. I was adamant about not backing down with her and my dad took me aside and said (not an exact quote):
“What you have to realize is that yes, you ARE right, and you are smarter than she is, but she is the one with the power here. She doesn’t like you because you’re smarter than her, and you’re going to encounter this all of your life. So take this knowledge and use it: let her win this time, because she is the one in power, and you need this class to graduate. When you look at it that way, you’re the one making her do what you want, not the other way around. Until you’re an adult, you’re going to find yourself in these situations. Some day it will be different.”
It made me realize that I was already capable, and that I had much more power than I realized, and that by letting go of my stubbornness and seeing into the motivations of people (including myself) and using those insights, I was much more free than I had realized. And that some day, I would be out of the cage of youth and on my own. I was never afraid after that to go out and do what I wanted to do with my life.
A ninth grade English teacher, Mrs. Jennings. She liked my writing and was extremely complimentary of it, which was unusual because I was an utterly indistinguished students and this was the first time I’d ever gotten notice. She recommended me for an accelerated program, which in 1980 unfortunately went by the name Special Education because all non-traditional (lower or higher achieving) programs were classed under that, and sent a letter to my parents for their permission.
My father flipped, used his job (he worked for the state department of education) to get her unlisted home number, and said “Look, I’ll agree the boy’s no Ben Franklin but I don’t think he needs to sit in the class with even more retards than are already in [Name of Public High School I Went To].” He was genuinely shocked to learn it was honors, though he still declined, BUT, for the first time perhaps he seemed to address me as someone who had potential. (He was convinced I was retarded due to a test I took when I was about 5 that I evidently didn’t do well on.)
I haven’t seen Mrs. Jennings in 25 years or more. I really should send her an appreciative letter because that actually did make a difference.
Sidestory about Mrs. J: She spoke with a very lilting voice- looked like Willona from Good Times but sounded more like the actress who played Eddie Murphy’s mother in Coming to America- a smooth and soft and perfectly grammatical [like Data- no contractions or slang] and slightly foreign voice. One day when she was trying to teach, somebody in the next room kept banging on the wall for no apparent reason and it was frustrating her, and she interrupted her reading in the Aoleone voice to cry out, pure ebonics, “Who be keep beatin’ on that goddam wall! Quit it! OH! Sorry class… I just get some nerves from time to time” and resumed reading in the previous pretty voice. Everybody in the room fell apart for about 10 minutes.
The first person to “believe in me” that wasn’t a relative was a college professor.
He took me aside and told me that I got an A on the final, and that students who got A’s were in a separate league from the rest, that it wasn’t a bell curve but more of a quantum step situation. It made me a lot more confident and also more intent on putting a little distance between myself and the pack.
I suppose, in general – my community. 'Course, my mum was the first to have faith in me, that I’d get somewhere, but I have had loads of people in my community (friends, associates, even just people who know me in the street walking by) who put such faith in me that I’ll do things, actually pull off the near insurmountable … It’s cool, in that it keeps me moving, and it’s scary and worrying, in case I do fail.
It wasn’t when I was a nipper in primary school. It kind of kicked in when I was about 12. Teachers, friends and neighbours. So far (fortunately) I’ve disappointed few.
Scooter. He was married to my dance teacher, and he was a bit of an emotionally stunted fuckup. But when he looked at me, and I looked back at him, I felt like I could fly. He encouraged me to keep writing when I was churning out the most godawful tripe because I was inexperienced, and with practice, I got much better. I don’t think I’ll ever understand what passed between us, but there is a little room - a closet, really - in my inner self that exists just because of him.
If parents don’t count?
Nobody.
My husband. He thinks I can do anything.
I think that perhaps too many people like that in your life would be bad for you and give you a drunken sense of power, but one person like that is awfully nice. Especially since he’s my first one, and I had to wait until I was nearly 30 to find him.