The Bronx, Jordan L. Mott Junior High School 22…. I was in 7th grade. It was a rough neighborhood, and I was already socially challenged because I had skipped a grade. I was a minority white-bodied student, the Black and Puerto Rican girls were already a lot more physically developed than the Caucasian girls their own age, and I was a year younger. I resorted to the not so creative tactic of stuffing my beginner bra with tissues in a futile attempt to make up for the lack. There was, however, one very petite, Black-bodied girl named Teresa who was still in undershirts. Her lack of development did not phase her at all.
Gym class must have been total horror for the teacher. Our class had 250 or 300 girls. The only way to take attendance was for everyone to have a designated spot on the floor, cross numbered and lettered according to the alphabet and numerical value. There was very little that the teacher could do creatively with a class that large. Often, after publicly changing into our frumpy green gym suits at benches along the gym walls (that is how I knew Teresa still wore undershirts), with some of the girls tucking in the baggy legs just right in order to look a little more fashionable, we took our places and usually did absolutely uninspiring exercises in our designated spots. Class often consisted of working out to barely strenuous prerecorded workouts (anything that required exertion most of the girls would not have bothered to do, anyway) or doing the Hokey Pokey to a record, over and over. The teacher’s main instructions to us consisted of telling us whether to turn right or left while doing the dreaded dance.
Once, the poor teacher told the huge class of innately belligerent girls to turn right each time that there was a change of direction required for the Hokey Pokey. Teresa had a spot near me, so I could observe that she followed the directions, even though there seemed to be some pact on the part of the other girls to do just the opposite of what the teacher instructed. There was Teresa, turning right, with all the other girls turning left by some mutual agreement, and me, bewildered, sitting the fence between peer pressure and proper instruction. So I wavered, left, right, left, right, and got no credit or acknowledgement from either the teacher or the other students, while experiencing a lot of internal strife.
I often wonder what happened to that powerful girl. I hope that she has applied her determination to the spiritual path. It has taken me into my adult years to follow resolutely what is proper authority without being compromised or illusioned by social, or even pastoral, pressure, doubting my own inner knowing. Now I simply desire to not to slip and fall on the most wonderful and the most precious of spiritual paths, the path of Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of devotion to the Supreme Lord, Sri Krsna, and to be able to apply myself boldly with full faith and determination, without diversion, answering solely to my Spiritual Master, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada..