school days...

some of my earliest memories have to do with the extraordinary being ordinary to me - with paranormal being perfectlynormal - one of the earliest ordinary/normal experiences occurred when i was about seven or eight years old - my father was a purchasing agent for the government so we travelled very frequently - it was nothing at all for me to not be in a school long enough to receive a six-week report card - in any event, new experiences new places new people were the norm for me - nothing stagnant nothing ever the same -

this particular incident was on my first day of elementary school in camden arkansas - it was the middle of the school year - my mother took me to the office to enroll me and then the principal walked us out into the hallway and said she would show me my locker and take me to my classroom - but i told her that she didn't have to because i already knew where my locker was and it's number and i already knew where my classroom was and who my teacher was - of course, she and my mother attempted to persuade me that i did not as i had never been to this school before - nor had i ever been to this town before -

it was not a rectangular shaped building but had a wing or two - i remember walking straight down the hall to the left and walking up to a locker which i knew was mine - and it was - then i walked ahead of the principal and my mother, down another hall to the right to my new classroom - i was right -

while i no longer remember my locker number or my teacher's name, the experience itself remains more than a little vivid - i can still see the hallways - the off-white tile floors - my dark green olive-colored locker and the face of my new teacher as if it had happened yesterday -

i also remember approaching the school and entering, feeling/knowing exactly where to go and who i would see - to me, i HAD been there before, somehow at some time - and i was perturbed by the confusion of the adults who tried to discount that knowledge -