Troop 1500

Watching a documentary on PBS in a series called "Independent Lens," featuring works by independent filmmakers. This episode is called Troop 1500. It is so depressing. So there are these women in prison who have daughters on the outside. The girls belong to a girl scout troop formed to go to visit the moms so they can have a relationship and teach the girls not to continue the cycle of crime. It's sad, because you can tell how much the daughters and moms miss each other. But what really got me is one of the moms who was valedictorian and a nurse for 16 years, who euthanized one of her patients, and is sentenced to 50 years in prison, 25 years for parole. How can one even wake up in the morning, counting the days, just letting time pass you by.

They showed the girls going to a girl scout store where they have uniforms and badges. It so takes me back to one of the most nostalgic events of my life--Brownies. My most treasured possession, somewhere in a box in a storage room 7000 miles away, is my Brownies sash, gorgeously, perfectly adorned with badges. I was a pixie. Each group, the name of some spritely fairy-like creature, had a different badge, indistinguishable but magnificent. Where did all these badges come from? I never paid for them, as far as I knew. But I remember those Tuesday afternoons, passing the guard at Stanley fort who let unsuspicious Brownies through to go to the meetings in a gymnastics room. The sun was always setting, casting a melancholy, Norman Rockwell hue on the evening. How I miss making silly crafts and playing pointless games. The badges were easy to earn, just make cupcakes or take a swimming test or show your stamp collection or speak Chinese. Badges rule.

Sometimes our all-white-except-maybe-3-Chinese troop went to all-white girl-scout events that featured dancing and less-pointless games, like getting to know stranger British girl scouts from other troops in HK for a day. Where did all these ex-pats come from? Now I wonder. And the folksy dances, we learned them beforehand, but why and who decided? So many questions. Funny thing was, at these strange outdoor events featuring dancing and girl scout fun, one or two girls from each troop were actually appointed to enter some kind of pageant, and they got to dress super country girly with a floral circle thing on their head. I so wished everyone just wore those floral circle things in everyday life, the world would be a better place.

At midnight I am 25. I so don't want to grow up. The oblivion, the setting sun, the crafts, the songs, the troop leaders who are called "Owls" (wisdom, etc., get it?), the badges, the square knots, the British guard at the fort, the rituals, the skipping in a circle, the induction of new Brownies, the goodbye song to kick out overaged Brownies as they walk away on a bridge that is really an upturned bench, the brilliant conversion of a gymnastics room into a Brownie meeting area. Why can't our real lives be shaped like this, by creativity, attainable goals, celebrations, order, and innocence?