I am 5 years old.
My kindergarten teacher give us a fun assignment
and hands out white paper to all the kids in my class
along with a box of colored crayons.
She claps her hands to get us all to listen
and tells us to draw a flower and color it in
with a color that makes us think of love
she tells us to draw grass under that flower
in the color favorite fruit
she proceeds to tell us to draw a sun
in the corner of our paper
and tells us to color it in with our favorite color.
She wants all our drawing to be different
yet similar and showcase little tiny snidbits
about who we truly are
I love the idea and start coloring madly on my paper
The color pink reminds me of love
and my favorite drink is orange juice
and although I've never eaten an orange
I assume that its probably my favorite fruit.
My beautiful pink flower stands out in the orange grass
and I draw a sun in the corner of my paper with a pencil.
At this point in my life I can't really decide
whether my favorite color is blue or green
so I cut my sun in half.
I color the bottom half blue and the top have green
and I hold my drawing in the air yelling "miss m I'm done!"
Other kids in my class are done as well
and Miss M is going around smiling at their work
patting them on their heads and giving them gold stars.
She takes one look at my drawing and smiles,
but then points at my sun.
"Alyssa, what's your favorite color?"
She asks me and I laugh
because I don't have a favorite color.
I laugh and I tell her that
and say that I love both blue and green
and she laughs a hearty laughs
and puts the gold star on the top of my paper
and tells me that I tried. I tried? I tried?
Other kids in my class had gotten gold stars
because their artwork was beautiful
and I got one because I tried?
I have a 6th hour knot in my stomach
and slunk down in my seat.
I grab a blue crayon
and go over the green part of my sun with the blue.
I bring my drawing back to my teacher again
and ask her if it's better now. If now it's beautiful.
She smiles again and says
of course she thinks it's beautiful
