I Don't Have a Happy Place by Kim Korson Page A

finished strong with
    Does anyone. Still wear. A hat?
    I’ll drink to that.
    I could barely ride a bike but was expert at mimicking Elaine Stritch’s tone. I already came assembled with most of the cynicismrequired for the number, everything else I’d picked up from the droll musings of my favorite TV show, Maude . Squirreled away in my room memorizing lyrics, belting them into my mic-shaped soap-on-a-rope, was how I spent many a childhood afternoon.
    Riding the city bus to school each morning, I’d pretend to practice piano on my green vinyl book bag. We didn’t have a piano at home, nor did I play a single musical instrument (minus the kazoo and one song on the push-button telephone), but still I slouched over the phantom ivories, doing my best Schroeder, hoping someone would notice. At recess I’d walk around with my feet positioned in duck formation so that I might be mistaken for a dancer. I was saving up my allowance to buy one of those silk piano-key scarves and a pair of Capezio dance shoes to go with the burgundy Danskin wrap skirt I’d forced my mother to buy. These were the accessories I was sure every last one of those orphans in Annie owned and were probably the reasons they were chosen to be on Broadway.
    When I was ten, I wanted to go blind. What, didn’t you see Ice Castles ? Somewhere between Tom Skerritt’s turtlenecks and the scrappy rasp of Colleen Dewhurst’s voice, I wanted in. I dreamed of being Lexie, with her curled blond bangs and polyester skating costumes. Mind you, I didn’t have a lick of athletic ability, but somehow I knew, deep down in my weak ankles, that if I’d ever bothered to apply myself, I, too, could do a triple axel. So what I wasn’t thrilled with the whole catastrophic-fall-amid-the-metal-tables-and-chairs-causing-the-life-altering-blood-clot part, I’d still take it. Because, oh, how I wanted flowers thrown at my blind self while Robby Benson stared deep into my unseeing eyes, Melissa Manchester’s voice in the background begging the world not to let this feeling end.
    I wanted all those things. Who didn’t? But what I wanted most was for that big-city coach—the one with the cowl necksweaters and all the hair—to waltz into my rinky-dink rink, see something special in me, and pluck me.
    I’d learned from studying countless television shows and movies that if you believed in yourself and didn’t give up, anything you wanted—fame, wealth, love—would come to you, even if you were disfigured. But apparently I hadn’t paid enough attention to the montage portions of movies, because I missed the parts where the work actually transpired. It seems life didn’t actually track you down. It didn’t just show up at your house, call you kid , and escort you to greatness. This was a giant letdown. I didn’t like feeling duped, especially not by the television, which I then blamed for my piss-poor attitude in high school and college. Apathy was my ethos throughout high school; I was not very good at college. I scraped by in both arenas, doing less than nothing, yet showing up just enough to get my respective diplomas.
    At my college commencement, I listened to Tom Brokaw address thousands of kids I swore I’d never seen before. He stood before us with that hair and dazzling speech impediment, pleading for us to go out there and make something of our lives. Bracing the lectern, he geared up for his closing sentence, the zinger that would propel us out onto Tremont Street to start our business as full-fledged adults.
    â€œRemember,” Tom said, “anyone can make a buck. But not everyone can make a difference.”
    Entry Level, Boston
    To kick off my job search, I looked to the classifieds, just as Harry Dean Stanton had always done when he was a loser dad and needed to clean up real good or else lose the love of his only daughter forever. What fun real life is , I thought,