Life Isn’t Linear: On Ms. Elle
Life is too short not to live, so please just find something you’ll all enjoy doing and have someone there to support you along the way.”
“You don’t need a Plan B right now. Go do the thing you want to do and then figure it out.”
These are the words Ms. Elle wishes to share with the students. Kimmarie Elle is someone who’ll be there for you, she will worry for you, care for you, love you and have faith in you.
Life is not a straight line, nor is it easy. When we are kids, we believe that our future will come very late or never realize how fast time goes by. As we get older, we begin to realize that there is more than saying “I’m going to be an astronaut when I get older,” and you get to experience the real world — the systems. Kimmarie Elle lived to experience these factors firsthand. She is a mother, an advisor, a former performer, a former actor and a health teacher at our school. Ms. Elle is a gem. She’s very creative, smart, kind hearted, funny and nurturing. Ms. Elle was interested to share her life story and past experiences with all of us, hoping that we can learn something out of it. This is the story of Kimmarie Elle.
Ms. Elle teaches the Health elective at our school and is also my advisor. Many of you might know her from taking her class, and interacting with her. Ms. Elle informs the adolescents of Comp Sci High about the nurturing side of life and about our health and livelihoods. She also puts herself to be there to make sure that everyone is okay — staff and students. She brings so much positive energy into our space that uplifts our community. She is always asking everyone around her if they're okay or not because she cares about us. She pushes students to try new things, to be creative with their work, and to get out of their comfort zone. She’s only been my advisor for almost a full school year, and it’s been fun. She was also someone very new to us and as time went by, we were able to build close or personal relationships with her. We may have our own special relationship with her, but as our advisor — we love her!
Ms. Elle grew up in Boston during a very tumultuous time. At age of 4, Ms. Elle’s mother kept her and her siblings away from her father: an addict and alcoholic who “couldn’t cope with the world,” which thankfully didn’t destroy her mother. Growing up in what was considered a “working class neighborhood,” her mother relied on public assistance and welfare to support her family of three; which she was able to stabilize herself and her kids. Boston aimed to integrate its schools while facing resistance from racists, which led to a more inclusive environment overtime. Her mom was also trying to be part of the change and the only way to do that was to take action — to be a part of the change. She had sent her kids off to black schools to fulfill their goal. Ms. Elle was only in the third grade despite it being a difficult time for everyone. People were protesting, boycotting, and some were leaving the cities. As she adapted, she noticed that many around her remained resistant to change. Nevertheless, Ms. Elle had her own unique interests and didn’t plan on staying but how? Barely anyone left so she had no idea of knowing how to leave. Yet Ms. Elle knew she had a dream to be a performer in New York, but she didn’t know how.
In highschool, South Boston was run by gangsters. In addition, the women’s movement was in play, and many divorces started to build up. It was hard for women and especially single moms. They all were walking their own independent road and working while the kids were at home. As gangsters continued to run the streets, the streets began to flood with drugs. Ms. Elle was able to predict what would come. Teenagers were depending on drugs and partying, which had her believe that their parents would be the cause of everything to happen again. Her mom began working while her brothers would party and act like they were going to school but they would just play hooky. Both of them attended public school, but Ms. Elle tried to convince her mom to allow her to enroll in a Catholic school instead of a public school. She wanted someone to be there to hold her accountable and watch her back; so she picked a school with a reputation of the “meanest nuns” and hardest curriculum. She had to take a test and select three schools to apply from but she only applied to one, and got accepted. It was a small all girls Catholic school which had very traditional education. During your senior year, you had limited options: get married, be a secretary or possibly go to college. Ms. Elle had a passion to try to be a performer and that was her goal. However, she never knew that she had to go to college to be a performer because nobody told her so. With the help of her art teacher, they built Ms. Elle’s portfolio and looked at many different schools.
Ms. Elle got accepted to Massachusetts College of Art and Design — the first step toward achieving her goals. She always wanted to be a performer in New York but people kept bothering her about it. When people hear her talk about moving to New York, they all say “What! No you’re not. What do you think, you’re better than us?” Therefore she kept quiet. It was kept on the back of her mind. She wanted to transfer from Boston to New York, but that wasn’t easy. There is a school in New York: Fashion Institute of Technology, and she wanted to try fashion. While she was at Mass Art, she found out that she couldn’t declare a fashion major until her junior year. She decided that she couldn’t wait the two years and dropped out after she finished her first semester which only got her six college credits.
Ms. Elle began working at the age 13, taking up a job as a waitress during high school. She dedicated her weekends to work, while saving as much money as she could. After she dropped out of college, she would work as a waitress in the daytime and a bartender in the nighttime. They saved and saved until one day, Ms. Elle and her friend just said “Let’s go. Let’s leave.” They got on a train to go to New York where they rented an apartment in Manhattan for a thousand dollars. She was only 20 years old. They first put down a down payment for the apartment and later went back to Boston to work again for two months before coming back to New York. Although she paid a thousand dollars for the apartment, that’s all she had left. Before coming to New York, her mother had encouraged her to move to New York. In doing so, Ms. Elle would be able to explore a whole new world. “If you don’t do it then you will be miserable because you’ll never know what could happen” her mother said.
Once she came back to New York, she started auditioning hoping she’d be able to perform on stage because she knew she wasn’t able to afford to go to college. Luckily she received a chance to perform in a duo with an amazing singer. Everything was going smoothly for them and eventually they got a big record deal, but this didn’t last. The big record deal didn’t happen which put Ms. Elle in a shocked state because she didn’t know what was next for her. She was 25 years old and felt completely shut down by it, but she knew she couldn’t stop there. She had to start over by looking for jobs, auditioning and teaching aerobics along the way. In 1994, the Off-Broadway hit STOMP came to New York, which Ms. Elle auditioned for and became one of the cast members. She also appeared on other shows such as Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, Late Night with David Letterman, The 68TH Annual Academy Awards, and in the HBO film STOMP OUT LOUD. It was a thrilling experience for her, and she went on tour. She said that “[She] was on for 2 hours just pounding on shit.” She visited 48 states while on tour and even countries like Japan. The show ran for about 28 years! STOMP became successful which gave Ms. Elle a steady paycheck. Ms. Elle had felt that she was living a successful career as a performer and she was extremely happy. She also met her husband during her show.
Toward the end of her career in STOMP, she decided to study acting because of how amazing the performers were on STOMP. STOMP had become a huge hit Off-Broadway show that produced even more. It was so huge that it eventually gave out tickets to their cast to go to Broadway shows. Ms. Elle was finally able to see so many shows on Broadway that increased her interest in acting. As she was in school studying acting, she was still performing for STOMP; she fractured her lower spine. She had to resign but instead performed in regional areas outside of New York as an actor.
Ms. Elle was later introduced to a company — ENACT, an arts and education company that hired actors to schools in New York to teach social and emotional learning using drama as a tool. She taught in the Monroe Campus where she would work in suspension centers. They would gather many kids from the Bronx around the campus into these centers to teach social and emotional learning using drama as a tool, and it was a disaster. Working for this company and other art program companies provided her with much-needed flexibility in her schedule. She was still able to be an actor because if she had to go somewhere, these companies would always have someone to replace her with another actor.
Ms. Elle has a beautiful marriage and her marriage was something she possibly couldn’t have expected to happen. She always thought that she'd never end up getting married because of how disastrous her parent’s marriage was, but that was before her husband: Dash. They’ve been together since 1995, and she describes her relationship to be a huge learning experience. She was able to view relationships through a different point of view where it’s something bright and real. Everyone has their ups and downs but that’s okay! “Shit happens!” Ms. Elle said. In 2005, they decided to get married after attending five weddings, and according to her, “this felt perfect.” Until her 40s, Ms. Elle and Dash were deciding to have a baby, where she had her daughter at 41. Dash and Ms. Elle were both actors and Ms. Elle had realized that both of them couldn’t keep being an actor while having the baby, they needed a steady paycheck. That’s when she settled on working towards her college degree that she never finished, at 41 years of age and with a baby. She chose to finish college to get a degree in education and be a teacher. Empire State College is where she determined herself to finish college to get her degree. The amazing thing about Empire is that they take adults who have been in the workforce and bring them to degree status, so they can raise their salaries. They give you college credit for the “life you have lived.” She had to write six essays, get in contact with people who could talk to the school about the work she’s accomplished and the six college credits she received from Mass Art. “That was cute…I didn’t waste my time,” she said. Luckily she also received so much support and scholarships to pay off her tuition and even had to apply for FAFSA. She successfully graduated from college which felt amazing for her. She felt a sense of satisfaction and pride in herself for managing to accomplish it despite her age and the responsibility of caring for a baby.
After graduating, she was finally able to get a full time job. What is a full time job? What does that even look like? Ms. Elle has been working throughout her whole life: delivering papers, as babysitter, working at a department store, working as a bartender, an actress, a teacher – you name it! Now with her degree, she was able to work at the Trevor Project. She got to train people to answer the answers of people who were part of the LGBTQ+ that needed help. One day Ms. Elle had come across a book that was about a school: Success Academy — that sparked her interests to teach at the school as a dance teacher where she met many of the staff you see now at Comp Sci high. She would teach 25 dance classes a week at another school, and it began to weigh a lot of tension over her. She knew that she couldn’t keep her energy levels so high and make it far. However she began to spot a few “holes in education,” due to lack of nutrition levels. A lot of these students would come to school very tired because they weren’t taking good care of their health. There was no health teacher! Who would come to save these children? She tried to talk to the administrators in hopes of incorporating health education to students, but she wasn’t able to.
Ms. Mickey, along with others, had already been working on a brand new school: Comp Sci High. She reached out to Ms. Elle to offer her a chance at being a Health teacher at CSH, which Ms. Elle happily accepted. Ms. Elle says that she sees herself working as a Health teacher until retirement. She loves how much freedom a Charter School has compared to a Public School, as well as the people she met at CSH. She was able to look into the future so many times which took her to be a health teacher at Comp Sci High. How amazing is she, right?
Life is not a straight line, life isn’t linear! It’s surprising to believe that Ms. Elle was able to work in so many fields but what motivated her to keep pushing? ART! Art has allowed her to be creative, and to think of so many ideas to make her life happy and entertaining. Art is very important to her. Her advice, “Go do something new! Go try something new after high school, whatever that means to you. Time is going to go by. Do something with the time!” Life is too short not to live, so please just find something you’ll all enjoy doing and have someone there to support you along the way. “You don’t need a Plan B right now. Go do the thing you want to do and then figure it out.” These are the words Ms. Elle wishes to share with the students. Kimmarie Elle is someone who’ll be there for you, she will worry for you, care for you, love you and have faith in you.
You’ll want someone like her in your corner, I know I do!