Thoughts and Promises

A Masterpiece

A young Picasso, that's what I saw myself as.

Of course, I wouldn't have known who he was or what his work meant. Nor the materials he used. In fact, at the bright age of 6, I didn't know anything about art. I just knew, taught myself, that I could create something colorful and reminiscent of the world, a masterpiece in my eyes.

What a young Picasso I had been.

My hands covered in marker and pen, up and down on my arms, my art went, the world was my canvas, and I was no exception. My wide eyes traveled from the surface of my paper to my own hands. A curious and developing mind perceived thoughts of what is beautiful; color was beautiful. And in the freedom of an imaginative mind, I noted different things and their uses. Hands are for art.

I sat in the chair of my mom's preschool classroom, myself only having just outgrown this setting. I, who only a year later, came to the realization that time doesn't stop, and neither does the world. I remember kids looking at me in amazement when I would visit the classroom, I was the same as them, taking on the same thoughts, ideas, knowledge, and innocence. But I was a little bit bigger; the obvious answer to explain to me was not age but that I was merely a giant. I, at that point, knew better. I knew the truth; kids born after me, younger than me, and myself outgrowing them. That answer, truth over imagination, baffled my young mind.

I loved to draw and paint even more so, but that day I only had access to pencils and a few dried-up markers. The tips of them turning white with tire, the ink spread out unevenly with chunks missing. Like a broken picture frame, the image hid behind.

I made the world, trees, mountains, and everything that I saw and perceived. First, I would draw what my eyes could envision and grasp, but my mind filled in the blank spaces. That day, however, I only drew one thing. It was going to be a challenge—my biggest piece yet—a family portrait.

Starting on the left, my father is drawn first, graphite from the led, leaving dark lines for his stick-figure body. My mom next, then my sisters, Topanga and Heather, and finally me. All of us looked the same - except for my father, of course, because he's a boy, he was the only one whose short hair was colored with marker and not pencil, and he wore a shirt, no dress for him. For the girls, the only difference between us was our height and the colors of our dresses. Just like in real life, we were one and the same.

Growing up, I was told every day how my sisters and I were all just a printed copy of my mother. It's hard to ignore blood when we share the same face.

I needed the world to understand, to see, and to acknowledge each of us independently, so to clarify a bit more, my mom wrote everybody's name for me. However, I did write Heather's name for the practice, with random letters capitalized and huge compared to all the others. Looked something like this, HeATHer.

After seeing the family portrait, I decided it wasn't finished; there was still too much negative space around us. So I added additions to our family, my cat, both my dogs, and all the puppies they've ever had, even though most of them were no longer with us but were given to new homes, friends, and family.

22 puppies.

The first litter she had was only three pups, I thought that it would be even, and I would get a designated puppy that was mine. Both of my sisters would get one as well, but I had been wrong. Topanga had gotten two, Heather had gotten one, and I was left with however many I wanted once they became bored. In retrospect, It didn't take them long to become bored of them, so in reality, it was a thought I got all of them to myself.
I put them all down on the paper, every puppy from every one of her litters. Towards the end, as my hand became sore from its workout and the finger that the pencil rested on became raw, the puppies started to lose their faces and legs until it was just a lone oval to identify a new dog.