childhood saga, one of many parts.

there are poignant moments from my young lifetime that i have carried with me and recollected many times. just the other day i was telling older sister about one of these pivotal moments in life that now i realize, defines part of who i am.

in kindergarten, we read a wonderful little book entitled "whose mouse are you?"

the narrator asks the little mouse where his family has gone and why he is "nobody's mouse" and he goes on to tell the reader that his mom is trapped in a cage, his dad trapped in the cat, sister ran away, etc, etc. my memory is a little hazy on this (this was twenty years ago) but as i remember, he up and decides to take some initiative and free his mother from the cage, shake his father out of the cat, find his sister and bring her back (word for word, i think. maybe i'm not so hazy after all), etc, etc.

mrs. boatwright, after reading us this lovely story, asked us to illustrate our own version, assigning each of us one page to draw and then later, putting them all together and have our very own (plagiarized) book.

i was assigned the drawing of mouse shaking his dad out of the cat. the hardest page in the freaking book. mouse is shaking cat so violently, there are actually three cats, like how one would illustrate a drunk looking at a cat. three cats.

i know now, and after mom told me later, that teacher gave me this page because she knew i was a good little artist and i could handle it. how little she knew of my obsession with perfection. and how little she knew that this moment in time would stand out in my memory for the rest of my life.

going in to the project, i was positive. this was going to be a stinking walk in the park. hey, i've got the book right in front of me, all i have to do it copy it onto my paper, right?

wrong.

what followed was a compilation of erasures, holes in paper from erasures, tears on stupid cat drawing, and hate. hate for mrs. stupid boatwright for making a poor little girl like myself take on such a dreadful assignment. i could not wait until i got home at 3:30 to tell my dad how mrs. boatwright had treated me like a common factory worker and how my self-worth had been played on so easily.

the drawing had now turned into a massive wreck and resembled how a drunk person would draw a cat if a mouse were shaking it. an utter and complete failure in my mind. i turned it into my teacher, tears welling in my eyes, and disappointment all over my sad little face.

she was awestruck. or at least simulated how an awestruck kindergarten teacher is supposed to react when she knows a child has put her heart and soul into something and feels it has come out wrong. i don't remember much after that, except mom telling me i needn't erase so much because it makes holes in the paper, but i probably came out on top of that terrible situation. especially now when brady tells me he remembers the drawing too and how impressed he was that i could make something like that.

were these people looking at the same drawing?! maybe i didn't ruin it as accurately as i thought i did. who knows.

i do know that when my dad was in first grade, that he had to be sent home for a week because of anxiety issues due to homework. a child? with anxiety issues?

weird.