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FOR TEAR , lacrima . T HE LACRIMAL BONE HOUSES THE TEAR DUCT, ALLOWING US TO CRY .
    I imagined that education took place in a land where the gods came to learn about and question hypotheses. In my mind, school should be a giant garden of luminescent flowers snaking through corridors of perfectly cut hedges. Unfortunately, my middle school was nothing like my vision, and so I would slip in and out of my fantasy, trying to flee the drab classroom in which I always landed.
    Our classroom was surrounded by giant letters of the alphabet with pictures of animals representing the shape of each letter. Horrible drawings decorated the walls alongside stories of our favorite family holidays, and the desks were arranged in a scattered line. I always felt like the children around me knew more than me because their parents had given them a book called Secrets to Life and All You Need to Know to Be Happy . It seemed they always knew how to pay sharp attention to what the teacher was saying, and their parents never forgot their lunches, snow boots, or winter gloves. No matter how much I forced myself to pay attention to the lessons, I somehow found myself back in the land of my daydreams. I always missed the given lesson and would become confused and angry with myself, which only served to force me further back into my land of enchantment.
    It wasn’t that I had problems with the educational system—I loved to learn. But I felt lost in a labyrinth, not knowing which path to take orwhich answer was correct. The only weapon I had against ignorance was the pencil, which I usually forgot and shamefully had to borrow from another student. The pencil became my key to escape into my newfound physical love. I would pretend my desk was a tumbling mat and the pencil was my body performing the greatest routine at the Olympic Games. I did that all the time, completely oblivious to the lessons on grammar, math, and science.
    One of my teachers began to notice the dissociation from my schoolwork. With dirty blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun, she looked like an elf, making my whole fantasy illusion much easier. She smelled of anger and discontent, and I often felt that she singled me out because she herself had lost her own dreams, and I was a reminder of the road less traveled. I was that single, burning fire in a forest that she could not extinguish, and the flickering of my flames scorched her inner child’s dream. She eventually telephoned my mother to ask her why I was so unfocused in the classroom.
    I came home from school one day, and my mom sat me down and said delicately, “How much do you like doing gymnastics?” I told her without blinking, forcefully, as if it was the only thing I knew, “With all my heart!” It was clear the words came from a greater authority, and I was a puppet under its control. “I thought so,” she replied. “I just wanted to ask you what I already knew.” I heard her talking on the phone later that day. She said my teacher thought I should quit or slow down my training in gymnastics because it was taking the focus away from my schoolwork. My mom told the teacher that was ridiculous.
    I don’t think my teacher understood how difficult gymnastics was. My teammates and I had a good time at practice, but it was hard work. It takes a special kind of discipline that many children haven’t yet cultivated. Even with the youthful energy a child carries, going to school all day, coming home, and then going directly to gymnastics was exhausting. My teammates and I missed out on a lot of things and sacrificed a lot for our passion.
    I remember one year I received the game Zelda for our Nintendo. I never wanted to stop playing it, but the moment came when mymom would say, “Joey, come on, we have to leave for gymnastics.” I loved gymnastics, never wanted to part with it, but I was playing a game. Did I have to go? Yes, I did, and so I went. Gymnastics is a bit different because it doesn’t carry the same