Embodying Soul: A Return to Wholeness
Section 2: Chapter 10 — Hungry to Learn
Dear reader: This is the chapter where I introduce Endless Curiosity — aka, Curiosa—from my perspective the Earth Realm. Chapter 9, I introduced her in the Soul Realm. You’ll definitely see the difference if you take a quick recap of Chapter 9 before diving in!
As I mentioned in my notes on the previous chapter, I do believe Endless Curiosity is the hero of this story, because it is my curiosity that keeps me growing and learning, meeting new people, and, basically, constantly asking the questions: Who are we? and Why are we here?
Of course, Curiosa was not an easy companion to have as a girl growing up in North Dakota, and so I learned early on that she was dangerous—she would make me seen, and being seen is always dangerous for women, has been since the beginning of time.
Chapter 10: Hungry to Learn
For me, books have always served as a portal to truth, allowing me to bypass the curtains people often put up around truth to keep others from knowing their own imperfections as human beings. In grade school, when teachers passed out the monthly book order form, I carefully considered my chosen books. As I browsed, my belly would flutter, my fingertips would tingle, and my heart would feel light. And my mom, without exception or objection, would write a check to cover the cost.
The books — Nancy Drew and Trixie Beldon mysteries, Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume coming-of-age books, the Little House on the Prairie adventure series, the Sweet Valley High teenage romance series, and later, into high school, V. C. Andrews, Stephen King, and Anne Rice novels — were magic carpets that flew me to foreign lands and alternate worlds. They told stories of heroes and heroines overcoming fear to reveal their courage. They showed the messy and imperfect inner feelings of people that more closely matched my own interior than the polished veneer exteriors I usually saw day after day. Where my dad had used sports as an outlet, as a way to express his emotions, I learned how to use books as an inlet, as a way to honor mine.
It was through books that I met a wolf with silvery eyes named Curiosa, who thereafter became my companion on all my searches for adventure, knowledge, and truth. Was she imaginary? Perhaps to grown-ups, but to me she was as real as the books themselves. She first came around sniffing at some book I held in my hands. Though her hunger was palpable, I was comforted by her presence, not afraid. She gave me a lick and curled up by my feet, her ears turned backwards towards me, listening, pondering with me. The two of us loved children’s books, but we were equally fond of schoolbooks, and learning in general. My proclivity to live in my mind aided my learning. While my relationship with my peers might’ve been awkward, my relationship with teachers, coaches, parents, or any other authority figure was simple: I followed their rules and did my work; they gave me good grades and permission slips. On report cards, my teachers described me as a good student, well behaved and a joy to have in class.
As the keepers of the truth and the gateway to knowledge, I both respected and was intimidated by authority figures. I knew by this time that the world was populated with two kinds of people: people who set the rules, and people who followed them. It didn’t seem that hard for me to understand and obey the hierarchy. Many of my teachers didn’t really know my name, and that’s the way I liked it — remaining invisible while quietly indulging in knowledge in the back of the classroom.
But Curiosa didn’t bother with rules, and cared not for protocol. She was willing to confront my teachers directly to get the clarity and completeness she needed to feel satisfied. Many of her nudges I could push back down, but some were too strong to resist. If a teacher’s lecture was confusing, my hand would fly into the air, waving for attention I didn’t want just to satisfy Curiosa’s need for things to be accurate and complete.
Fear, to whom such behavior seemed out of line, would panic and say, “Put your hand down this instant! Everyone is looking at you! You don’t know what to say!” But once called on I — absent of Fear — would express a thoughtful question or observation that impressed even me, though perhaps not my teachers, who probably preferred me being a quiet joy, and certainly not my classmates, who preferred we go to lunch.
Curiosa’s hunger in the classroom only grew as I did, and by the time I entered puberty she was unpredictable and nearly insatiable. Given the fact that I was now breaking out with acne and wore thick glasses, this was exactly the wrong time for me to be more visible. Outwardly, I became more and more shy. Inwardly, I became more and more tightly wound and desperate. But even while I dared pose a question now and then, I never dared to express anger, annoyance, or a dissenting opinion. One time our teacher told us to expect a bonus question on a social studies quiz and I spent additional time studying. When the question turned out to be “Name the teams playing in the Super Bowl this year” — a ridiculous question that had nothing to do with our social studies chapter and besides, I didn’t follow football — I suppressed my anger, fearing how visible that would’ve made me. Anger and I had not officially met yet anyway, and I was glad because I didn’t want to get into trouble.
Actually, at the time it probably would’ve been harder for me to get into trouble than to stay out of it. Common excuses of troublemakers confused me: “I got carried away,” “It was a momentary lapse of judgment,” or “I wasn’t thinking.” How does someone stop thinking? I wondered. I wished I’d have known. I was always analyzing information, or reflecting back on the last thing I had said or done, or worrying about the next thing I might say or do. My thoughts never stopped — a reason, I believed, I avoided trouble.
I managed to avoid trouble except once when I was fifteen. My best friend Jackie and I were out for a weekend afternoon stroll. We walked up a small hill to the new high school being built over the summer to be ready for us by fall. We were excited about our graduating class of 1990 being the first to attend all of our high school years at this school. We peeked in some of the windows, imagining which of the rooms might be our homeroom. There were no fixtures up yet and no carpeting, but the framing was mostly complete. Curiosa led us around to the back, where someone tried the door and found it open.
For maybe the first time in my life I didn’t think, and instead I followed Curiosa inside the school. We ran around, first downstairs then upstairs, exploring, imagining, laughing, our faces flushed. A car drove by. The adult male driver and his female passenger looked up at us. We waved. A few minutes later they drove by again. We thought that was weird, so we ducked. The third time they drove around, staring up at us, we decided we’d better leave. Curiosa whined but followed us back down the stairs and into the hallway that led to the door we’d come in.
But there, at the end of the hallway, stood a Fargo police officer.
Jackie and I, mirror images of fear and confusion, looked at each other helplessly.
The officer growled, “What were you girls doing in there?”
“Nothing,” we answered.
“How did you get in?” he asked as he studied the door.
“The door was just open,” we mumbled.
“Open or unlocked?” he asked, challenging us to lie.
“Unlocked,” we clarified.
“This door shouldn’t have been unlocked,” he stated, glaring at us and pulling out his radio. “Tell me the truth, now, how did you get in?” he asked again, after putting the radio away.
“The door was unlocked,” we said again.
He stared down at us and replied, “Well, you girls will have to come with me to the station.”
“Jail? What have you done?” chided Fear, rushing around in my mind.
Up until this point, Jackie and I both thought the officer, content that the encounter had sufficiently frightened us, would realize he was dealing with a couple of innocents, not delinquents, and send us home. We followed him to his car and crawled inside. The door locked automatically when he shut it. We stared at the grates that separated the back seat from the front. We were no longer joys to have in class. We were criminals. The ride to the station was probably less than five minutes, but it felt much longer. Jackie and I kept glancing at each other with the unspoken words: How could we have been so stupid? What are we going to do now? I glared at Curiosa, who kept looking out the window, thinking this was a pleasure drive.
I was relieved but embarrassed when my dad arrived at the station to pick us up. He talked with the officers, his salesman persona working its magic to get us out of trouble. Ultimately we were not charged with anything. We followed my dad to the car walking about ten paces behind him. He didn’t speak on the drive home, but once I was alone with him he lectured me on how I’d disappointed him, how he thought he’d taught me the difference between right and wrong. If the floor had opened up, I would gratefully have let myself be swallowed by it.
Fear warned, “Everything I told you about staying small and invisible you just ignored. The problem is that wild animal you’ve been palling around with latey. School particularly is no place for wolves! You can have her or you can have safety, but you can’t have both.”
I agreed. Curiosa was fun as a child, but her inquisitive nature disrupted my logical thinking, which I needed if I was going to stay safe as I grew older. Keeping her around would only lead to a life of more trouble, like a trip to the principal’s office which, for me, would’ve been equally as mortifying as sitting in a police station.
When school started that fall and Curiosa tagged behind me as usual, I led her to a tree just outside the school building and said, “Listen, I’m sorry, but you have to wait out here.” She looked up at me, head cocked to the side, confusion clouding the silver gleam of her eyes. I leaned close and whispered in her ear, “I know, but you’re not allowed in school anymore. You’ll get me into more trouble. You ask too many questions, you disrupt my thinking, and you make me too visible. Just wait out here, and we can read a book tonight at home, okay? Besides, I’m growing up now and I need to start fitting in. You don’t see any of these other kids bringing wild animals to school, do you?” She stretched her long legs out to lie down on the pavement, lowered her head, and exhaled heavily.
Fear applauded my decision, saying, “Without Curiosa, you will be free from asking anything but the most basic questions in school. Free to stop seeking clarification or correcting misstatements, Keri. Without her, you will be free!”
Fear was right to a certain extent — I felt some freedom and relief in not asking questions. But something more important was lost in that early exchange of Curiosa for my safety. Despite her penchant for getting us into trouble, Curiosa represented my curiosity and sense of wonder about the world. Without her the world was no longer a place to explore but instead an intimidating, threatening place, one, like the dead cat from years before, not for me to touch.
There were, however, occasional highlights during the rest of my school years. Senior year my English teacher introduced me to many books I’d never read before, including The Scarlet Letter, The Divine Comedy, Death of a Salesman, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, and Animal Farm. In this class, students were free to envision the world as they wanted and present their visions to one another. In the books we read, characters grew and developed through hardship, conflict, loss, success, and surprise. Even given the often wildly incomparable differences between a character’s life and my own, I could empathize with the fictional characters in a way I rarely could with people in real life. Despite my having expelled Curiosa from school, she sometimes caught the scent of mystery, magic, and adventure from wherever she had gone and eventually found her way back home to me. And I, the shy introvert, the back-row girl, began to consider taking a front-row seat, my soul shining through my eyes.
Now, I wish I could take a seat next to that contented girl and tell her yes, for now you may look to others to toss logs on your fire for thinking and learning, but one day, I promise, you will start and build those fires for and by yourself.
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