I have vivid snippets of memories from my early childhood education: singing in kindergarten chapel at Kingsport, Tennessee’s Episcopal Church; dreading recess because no one would play with me or even let me on the jungle gym; a very large deciduous tree in the far corner of the fenced-in playground that dropped wildly interesting nuts; something about Three Blind Mice in the basement of that ancient stony place; naps on a mat in warm, filtered afternoon sunlight. 

But these strong memories pale in comparison to the time I insisted on wearing just a shirt and leotards to school. And my mother letting me. 

Oh J. Alfred Prufrock, if you only knew.

In your “Love Song,” you ask if you dare disturb the universe, noting that there is time in a minute for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. That’s one minute I might wish to reverse. I can still feel my awkwardness: the realization dawning on me that I was only half-dressed in a room full of laughing boys and girls, and tugging at that shirttail as if I could somehow stretch it enough to cover my embarrassment.  

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?  

The memory of my own pinning and wriggling—standing in line to go to chapel, and art, and recess, and myriad other activities that day that required me to stand up and be caught not with my pants down, but with my pants completely absent—is forever burned into my frontal lobe where personality hides. There is no spitting that out. There is only living with the scar from the pin’s incision. 

Oh but it’s the same tired tune, J. Alfred--the one all inwardly-driven types sing--quietly, and to themselves so that no one else can hear. I made a bold choice that morning, and I stuck to my decision. My mother allowed me that autonomy, never realizing of course that it would scar me so deeply. Who can know these things? Certainly not my five-year-old self, who, knowing what I know now, might have done as instructed and put on a pair of britches.  

But looking back on my kindergarten experience I realize I learned—or rather, taught myself—that God’s crayon box contains primary colors only. We are free to stay the color we are born. Or we can allow our experiences, decisions, and sometimes sheer will to mix in a neighboring color. Although the boundaries between the three basic, pure colors cannot be breached, we are free to experiment, to soften our edges. We can choose to mix in experiences that change our hue within our primary boundaries. This is our limited palette; there is no changing that basic crayon God wields on each of us. But some change is possible, if we choose to change. How much is entirely up to each individual, and the experiences they draw. 

That early event was scarring, but it moved me—for better or worse—just a nudge along my color wheel. I’ll always be an introvert, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I must always be a pure, primary introvert. I chose not to wear pants one day when I was 5, and it affected me. But I lived through it. I could have retreated into my shell like ragged claws scuttling, but instead I chose to poke my head out and move forward. My choice. My palette.  

Do I dare disturb the universe? I do commiserate with you J. Alfred, my wriggling friend. It’s so much easier, and way more harder, to just stay on that primary color swatch. But there really is just one answer to the question: yes. Yes, let’s.