Deep in storage, I found the box containing the kindergarden paintings my mom had saved. Tempura scenes of children holding hands, birds shaped like upside-down Ws flying in clear sky. Tempura on butcher paper holds up, pretty well: after all these decades tucked away, the painting colors are still vivid, the writing (from first and second grade) legible. Do they still used that cheap lined paper in schools today, the one with the dotted line in the middle of the height of a capital letter?
Going through the boxes is part of a plot to clear more space in our basement, but the activity became one of those unplanned life reviews, as I sorted through old photographs, childhood artwork saved by my mother long ago, old clips and too many journals and notebooks that I don't yet have the heart to toss. What's striking from the early writing and painting is how well I knew myself; no questions there, just being in the moment, painting and writing it as it was. Also notable is a lack of post-creative judgement. How much of my adult life creative time can be wrapped up with getting myself back to a state of such in-the-momentness!
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