Grace: the thousand things that I am by Elizabeth Li (16, Canada)

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Noun: Grace
\ ˈgrās  \
Origins: Middle English: via Old French from Latin gratia, from gratus ‘pleasing, thankful’; related to grateful.

Definition:

1. A disposition of kindness and courtesy like the shimmering surface of a perfectly still lake. Sunlight settles and refracts to weave a blanket of glittering white, shielding the gaze from what lies underneath

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Example sentence: The world becomes a roiling ocean, surging and crashing inwards and plunging me under. Fellow kindergarten students crowd around me – bodies taller than mine, faces I don’t recognize. The words that spew from their lips fall as meaningless noise on my ears: animalistic sounds patterned into refined jargon; jagged puzzle pieces that collapse around me like the haphazard site of a natural disaster. The asphyxiation of anxiety seizes my throat as they press closer with bright, curious eyes, their foreign babble a cacophony that fills my world. And then I pick out what they are saying in their bastardized tongue: “Nee hao?” “Ni how!” “Nee how?” “Nee how?” I am a deer in headlights, standing perfectly still and silent, my mind buzzing with white noise. During a parent-teacher interview, Ms. Johnson says, “She holds herself with such grace. You’ve raised a very polite child.”

     2. A temporary exemption, a precarious intermission in time, a fleeting breath of freedom for                the drowning man

Example sentence: My fingers press solidly into the small of her back just as she spins around, her fingers crossed in a “t” position. I skid to a stop, blinking in confusion. “It’s a time out,” she explains smugly. “Like a grace period. You can’t tag me when I’m in it.” I murmur a small “oh” and pivot to tag someone else. The other girl with the pigtails makes the “t” just before I reach her. The others snicker, but it sounds like laughter, and laughter means they are happy. So I swallow back the bitter, bubbling frustration and run from person to person like a dog, thinking myself part of the family even as they taunt me with their joy.

    3. A short prayer at a meal asking a blessing or giving thanks to He who created the world and             brought us light

Example sentence: “Grace,” her parents say at dinner before we dig into our meals. I sit delicately with my back straight, a napkin folded on my lap. The boy beside me knocks over his drink with an over-enthusiastic gesture, and orange juice spills across my shirt. “Sorry!” he apologizes, lasagna dribbling from the corners of his mouth. I wipe at myself with the napkin and tell him its alright. Later, her birthday cake is unveiled; it is massive and rectangular and slathered in frosting. The children clamber for the slice with their favorite fruit or drawing, and I am jostled back and forth in their hungry pursuits. I hang back, waiting, and receive the plain, remaining piece. Sticky and uncomfortable, I offer her a smile as I return to my seat. 
     
      4. That of purity and sanctity. Don’t ask who defines what is what.

Example sentence: She confesses on Valentine’s day with a handwritten note slipped into his desk afterschool. He reads it aloud to the class and laughs in her face. She flees to the teacher’s vacant desk and sobs behind the chair, all while he mockingly recites again and again the carefully crafted letter she had written. Fury burns; I drive my fist into his shoulder and he staggers. Ms. Davis gasps in scandalized horror while the boy wails that he can never golf again, and she ushers me to the principle’s office. How easy it is, for the boy to simply be “rowdy” and “young”. How easy it is for them to sit me down and lecture me about respect and kindness. This is the inconsistent bar I’ve leapt day after day for the sake of grace, but I might just prefer to be down here, limbo dancing with the devil.  

     5. The ease and suppleness of movement, immortal beauty attributed to that which is calm                 and silent

Example sentence: Her face is bisected in two from the other side of the piste, the golden curls of her ponytail brushing against her shoulders. There is grace in the arc of silver through the air as I swish my blade down in a salute. Does she think I didn’t see her across the court, pulling her eyes into slits and preening as her friends crowed with laughter? Go on: trivialize my history and the beautiful tapestry of lives that have woven together the fabric of who I am. En garde, prêt, allez. I will tear you to pieces.

       6. A title given to the all-forgiving Father that loves all

Example sentence: Shall we play at romance, darling? Perhaps the cute boys we’ve been chasing around the mall will let down their guard. How easily amused you are – you with the name of a German necromancer, the slender curve of your body pressed against my back, your arms wrapped around my neck as we ride down the escalator. I’ll braid your hair if you kiss me, but I can’t say that His Grace would approve.

       7. (transitive verb) To confer or bestow, sometimes something good and desirable, sometimes          an insubstantial shadow that brushes against the human consciousness just as the serpent          whispered to Eve

Example sentence: Here are the things that grace little girls in dreams but are never to be spoken aloud: the indescribable fascination with the calamity hidden behind our smiles, the conflagration we could incite over the porcelain dolls we haunt, the blasphemy of a young woman becoming god. We are all stars ablaze in our own fire, careening soundlessly through space, poised to rend catastrophe through the universe. Destruction and creation. Supernova.