I have always wanted to draw

I have always wanted to put lines and color together

and have them tell a story

I have always wanted to be an artist.

 

But one day

when I was 7 years old

my teacher took a look at a picture I was painting and she cried,

” What is the matter with you? Are you doing this on purpose? All you had to do was paint a tree. How hard is it

to paint a tree? I showed you how. ”

 

She pointed to the chalkboard where she had drawn a perfect tree for us to copy.

It was indeed a beautiful tree.

 

I stood there in my oversized shirt with flowers on it- my first and only artist’s ” smock ” and looked at my painting of a cat with fangs and devil’s horns. It wasn’t like the tree on the chalkboard or even close to the ones my classmates had painted and I was pretty sure it was not beautiful.

 

” It told me it wanted to be a Cat. With fangs. And horns. ” I said pointing to the obvious mistake I had created at my easel.  ” Not a tree. It did NOT want to be a tree.”

 

She pulled the brush out of my hands, grabbed my arm and marched me back to my seat and made me sit down in it.

Hard.

 

” Don’t ever do that again.”

 

And I didn’t.

 

I never painted or drew my own pictures again because they never seem to want to be anything close to what I was expected to produce. They have ideas of their own.

 

Instead I write stories with Fangs and horns and sometimes they have a cat’s face and they can be exactly who they want to be.

 

Lines and colors kept safe in words on a page.

 

amm

 

Daily Addictions Prompt: Refuge