Teeth and travels

When I was in first grade, my teacher hung up a chart documenting the class's tooth losses. It was simple, really--it listed each name down the left-hand side, followed by a long, empty space that would eventually fill with stickers for each lost tooth. By the end of the year, several students had quite an impressive line-up of stickers to match the gaping holes in their mouths, but I didn't even have so much as a wiggle.

There was one girl who was tied with me in the race for second-to-last place: Heather. There we were, embattled for what seemed like months on end to be the first of the lasts. One day, the unthinkable happened: Heather arrived in class toting a huge, construction-paper, pink and red, heart-shaped card that had appeared under her pillow the night before along with five whole dollars of glorious tooth fairy bounty. And sure enough, when she smiled big to announce her winnings, she had that tell-tale hole in the front of her grin.

I was devastated. I finished out the year with not a single sticker, and didn't even have a serious wiggle until the end of the summer. It finally got to the point where it was hanging by a thread and had just become a nuisance, but I couldn't muster up the gall to pull it out.

One day, my grandparents came over and I met them in the driveway, boiling over with the excitement of how close I was to finally losing that first pearly white. I pushed it first forward, then all the way back, just to demonstrate to Nanny just how loose it was. She bent over to me, intrigued, and said, "Wow! Can you show me that again?" Gullible girl that I was, I pushed it forward and back, and just as I got it as far as it would go, she bumped my elbow and it popped out into my hand.

And that's how Nanny has always been--she gives us that little bump when we're too scared to go any further.

The first week of my trip to Spain, all I wanted was to go home. And I'm not just saying that--I couldn't sleep or eat, and I didn't want to make friends or see the country. One afternoon, I was in the middle of a long, sniffly phone conversation with my mother when my grandparents walked in the door. Nanny got on the phone right away, and she only had to hear my voice break once to know what was going on.

She moved to Boston after World War II, newly married to my grandfather, who had been stationed in the navy in her hometown of Plymouth, England. I'd never really considered what it must have been like for her to leave everything behind and come to a strange place, with no way of getting in touch with her family. She told me that when she got to her husband's family's home, she panicked and refused to get out of the car. He went inside to explain what was going on to his family, then came back out to try to calm her down. She met him at the door and went inside to introduce herself to everyone, one by one, because she had seen enough photos to know immediately who was who.

They were stunned. A minute earlier she had been hiding in the car, confirming their suspicions that she wouldn't impress. Now here she was, striding into the room with a smile, shaking hands and guessing names.

And that was the key, she told me. I was terrified, but I acted like I knew what I was doing. I pretended poise and self assurance. Even if you're not, make them think you're confident, and the rest will come.

That became my mantra for the rest of my trip. When I stumbled over the language, I self-corrected and moved on. When I felt left out or lonely, I'd find something on my own to do. I took up running and taking spontaneous detours on my way home from class. Exploring became my manifestation of the confidence that I wished I had.

And she was right--the rest did come. The people who probably thought I was weird at the beginning for my incessant tears and lack of energy became close friends and allies in a strange world. I learned to master the general flow of a conversation rather than feeling inadequate and obsessing over a single word I didn't understand. I learned my way around the city like the back of my hand, and became a resource for my less navigationally inclined friends. My running routes took wider and wider loops and I welcomed getting lost so I could test my abilities to find my way back home.

She opened a door for me that day; she gave me that bump in the right direction when I was too scared to move forward, and all I wanted to do was to give up and come home. It was one of the most important lessons she has ever taught me, and it's something she could never have shared with me had I stayed at home in safe waters those four months.