When I was a junior in high school, a teacher I’d been studying music with since the 6th grade decided to be mean. Like: really mean. There came a day when I lost my shit. I threw my violin and I walked out. I never went back. I hadn’t really wanted to play the violin to begin with.

The counselors let me switch into the class that put together the school’s literary magazine, The Flame. I can’t remember what the class was called, but it was taught by my favorite teacher that year, Mrs. Wylie. I was in her American Literature class. We read Hawthorne, Poe, Miller, Faulkner. Susan Glaspell. She had a stuffed raven that said “Nevermore.” It was weird, but we loved it. When I lost my shit in orchestra, Mrs. Wylie was kind to me. I think she knew that I was right.

Mrs. Wylie graduated from high school with my uncle, Jimmy. I remember looking through his high school yearbook and seeing her picture. I got the feeling she was a lot more popular than he was.

Lynn Phelps Wylie
February 1944- April 2014 

Senior year, she let me borrow her vintage prom dress so that I could portray Glinda the Good Witch in The Flame’s Homecoming Float in the Homecoming Parade. The dress was tiny. So tiny, I couldn’t get it zipped and had to wear a tank top under it.

At one point, Mrs. Wylie organized a school trip and took a couple of us to France. The next year, we went to England. Sometimes, when I’m home, I look through photos of those trips. I look so young in the photos. We all look so young.

Goodbye, Mrs. Wylie.