the girl
shut in
school
all day
stepped
outside
into night
“Oh, it’s nice out.”
her voice
a bright
bell
in
the dark
1970
In 1970 I worked as a night watchman at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois on weekends. I walked around inside and outside the building, punching a clock at about twenty different locations on a two hour cycle.
On one Saturday in the spring a group of students was in school taking a battery of tests. The tests began about noon and lasted until dark. I was making one of my trips around the outside perimeter just as a group of students emerged. One girl exclaimed as she stepped out into the warming spring air “Oh, it’s nice out,” in delighted surprise.
The genuine joy that rang through her voice in that moment moonlit pleasure caught my ear and called my attention to the magic of night after having been inside for hours. I was cheered by this teenager’s enchantment. It was her final test, her capacity to respond to the universe after hours imposing her skill and knowledge on a fragment of the world.