It took me a long time to realize how challenging it has been for our daughter growing up in our household. My husband and I did not start our family until our thirties, and then our little girl arrived three and a half years after her older brother. My children have always been very close. They not only love each other with a sense of family responsibility, but they truly enjoy being in each other’s company. They are the best of friends. Even now, although they spend only a few weeks each year together, they are thick as thieves. Over winter vacation, their heads were drawn together instantly in conspiratorial partnership; off they went. They took on the malls, the movie theaters, the favorite lunch spots—all like a pair of bosom buddies. One kid could not miss the opportunity to drive to the airport to welcome the other, or to conduct the final send off.
Quite unexpectedly, our daughter descended into a funk during her sophomore year in high school. We could not understand it. There did not seem to be an academic or social problem lurking at school. Our perennially cheerful sunshine girl simply lost her glow. It was not until she graduated three years later that she expressed to us how miserable she was when she became, in essence, an “only child”. She was unprepared for her brother’s college exit, and we were oblivious. She has always been a reserved child who expresses herself in quiet and subtle ways.
These times coincided with the infamous teenage years. My husband and I, normally somewhat competent even in her eyes, became ‘lame’ and irrelevant. But at the same time, something miraculous occurred: she began to inhabit her adult skin and adult brain. We tried our best to give her some space. She developed style, taste, interests, opinions, and a clear point of view. It was during this difficult only-child period that she also emerged creatively, beginning to understand the relationship between inspiration and making art. She worked hard honing her craft, enduring a succession of drawing classes so narrowly focused that moving from the black of charcoal to the finer grays of pencils felt like she was achieving technicolor.
At the end of sophomore year she brought home the spoils of two semesters of class activity, a bag filled to capacity with term papers, problem sets, quizzes, and sketches. I asked my daughter if she would share her art pieces with me, wondering as all parents do whether her talents were in sync with her passions. She seemed a bit reluctant, and then said, “Mommy, don’t be mad.” She pulled out a large paper folded in half. The assignment was to create a collage that captured her “emotional self.” On it was something much more than a collage; she had created an original image out of her magazine cutouts. My eyes widened in surprise.
In the corner of the page was a tiny girl in schoolyard plaids—reminiscent of a wonder-lost Alice, meandering on a boardwalk of her favorite daffodils. She was dwarfed by an enormous mannequin-faced image devoid of eyes that materialized from a mountain of icy snow. Its Medusa-like hair carved from meaningless words reached out in all directions. From its mouth, the blind creature spewed fire, carved of sharp jagged shapes, like a dragon breathing flames that cut as well as burned. Chilled by the image, I asked her to describe it. “This is what I feel like when you yell at me,” she said. “Parents can make their children feel small and helpless,” she explained, saying no more.
I stared at the image for a long time. My mind was filled with so many thoughts—my own reminiscences of childhood, confrontations with both of my children, memories of my daughter as she took each successive step toward the woman she was becoming before my eyes. I observed how the image itself moved from left to right, from icy cold to burning hot, telling its story. I took a quick inventory of my emotions. I was feeling many things—but nothing I was experiencing resembled anything like anger.
“It’s amazing,” was all I could think to say, practically breathless. “You’re not mad?” she asked. “How can I be mad? It’s incredible! This is far more than a collage. You have created an original piece of art, and it is so expressive!” I couldn’t say enough. Here, in her use of color, mixtures of scale, contrasts, literal vs. figurative images, she had managed to do so many things in the context of such a limited school exercise. I was so proud of what she brought to this silly assignment, and so thrilled to see the first glimpses of a real talent and vision emerge.
“But you’re not mad that it’s . . . about you?” she asked again. “But it’s NOT about me,” I said, assuring her that I understood. “You are telling your own story from your own point of view, and that is always OK.”
It can be unsettling when your child holds the mirror up to your face, showing you to yourself in a different light. Reality has many faces. She has my blessing to use whatever inspires her creativity; may it give her wings.
Tomorrow's blog: Symphony Sensation
No comments:
Post a Comment