Sentimental Goop

It must have been in the sixth grade, maybe junior high, ... no the sixth grade. I remember now because it was at Noble Elementary. The Art Room was next to the Utility Room where they used to sell the treats on Treat Days, when our mothers would give us a dime to take to school and where we'd line up during the afternoon recess for popcorn balls or fudgesicles or whatever the snack was that day. Yes, it was the sixth grade, and the Art Room was down at the end of the building next to the Utility Room.

I was a horrible artist. Forget watercolors or colored pencils, I couldn't even fingerpaint anything beyond the basic rectangles and circles, but in the sixth grade everyone had to take Art Class and luckily the teacher wasn't too hard on us and would give even the most ham-handed of artists a B if they showed up for class everyday. I showed up and was perfectly content to get my B.

I remember one of her assignments particularly well. We were each to select an animal and return the following week with a drawing. I don't know why I chose a bird, perhaps because I couldn't draw an elephant, although truthfully I couldn't draw a bird either beyond the basic "m" shapes that some people use to draw birds in the distance. Either way, my assignment was to draw a pencil sketch of a bird and I determined to go home and come up with something with a beak and feathers, even if it didn't exactly resemble the real thing.

When I got home I saw my mother sewing in the family room, as was her usual custom in those days, and she saw the sheets of white construction paper the art teacher had given me to use for my drawing. She asked about the construction paper and I told her about the assignment. She smiled at me and asked "Do you know how to draw a bird?", knowing full well I couldn't draw a brick, let alone a bird.

"No" I said, "I'll just copy one from the encyclopedia."

"Well, it's easy to draw a bird" she explained, "get me some paper and I'll show you how."

I was a little suprised at that. In all the years I'd known my mother (and I'd known her all my life) I had never seen her draw anything before. Well, except for kanji. I can still remember her sitting hunched over the kitchen table with her reading glasses on and writing these letters to her family back in Japan that would take days, even weeks to finish. Each character had to carefully stroked, each column worked slowly from right to left. Her kanji skills were superb, no doubt honed by her years working as a government copyest during the war, and each character it's own little work of art.

But drawing, that was something different. She had a friend named Ruth who was a painter and she used to go over to her house and admire the unframed paintings that she had laying around her garage, but whenever Ruth offered her lessons she declined telling her that she was much too busy looking after the house and family to ever take up painting. Which was true, I suppose, although outside of Ruth's garage she never seemed to show much interest.

Then I remember a story my mother used to tell. When she was a little girl, about 12 or 13, she told me, she had won an art competition at her school. It wasn't anything major, hers was a little town and well outside the orbit of Tokyo or the other major cities to the south, but she took took first place and was even a little overcome when one of the local VIP's saw her painting and decided that it should be hung in the hallway of the local government building. I remember how proudly she used to tell that story and how happily she remembered going down to the government building and seeing her painting upon the wall. In her town that government building was second only to the Emporer's Palace as a place of respect and importance, and the entire family felt honored to have her painting seen there.

I don't know what dreams my mother dreamed in those days, but she must have dreamed of going to a great art school I suppose, or university, or maybe even getting an imperial commission, who knows, but things didn't turn out that way. As my mother always used to finish the story, it was only months later that all the children at the school were called out of class to listen to an announcement from Tokyo that Japan had just won a great victory over the United States. It was December 8, 1941, and although she didn't know it at the time, all her dreams were gone.

As I gave my mother some blank sheets of paper I remembered her story. That's right, I thought, she can draw, at least she used to draw even though she doesn't draw anymore. My mother laid the sheet of paper flat over the hard cover of my school binder and began drawing a long slender outline on the paper. "This is the breast" she told me, "and the wings will go here." As she continued drawing her conversation began to fade. Slowly the bird began to appear on the paper, the breast, the wings, the head, the feet, the beak and the eyes. She drew in feathers and the bird acquired a texture - a texture so soft you could almost reach out an touch it. As I watched her continue on it became clear to me that this was not the work of an amateur or hobbyist. Ruth was a hobbyist and though I thought her paintings were just fine, my mother could draw much better than Ruth. Even with just a pencil and paper she created something more alive and real than any of Ruth's fruit bowls or flower vases.

When she finished my mother smiled at me and gave me a look like "See, that's how you draw a bird", though if I lived to be a hundred and ten years old I knew I'd never be able to draw anything like that. I took the drawing and asked her "Mom, how come I've never seen you draw before. I didn't know you could draw like this." My mother never answered me, and in all the remaining years of her life I never remember her once picking up a pencil and drawing anything ever again.

So why am I writing this? Well, you asked me what I wanted for Christmas, didn't you. I know I didn't give much of an answer, but there's a reason. It would just sound too corny, too sentimental to say it out loud. I grow older and find that I don't care so much about having things I've never had before. Sure, when you're a kid you always want the newest thing, the newest toy or whatever, but lately I find myself wanting things I used to have and lost. People I used to know, names I used to remember, and little things I gathered along the way and misplaced.

Like a picture of a bird that my mother drew for me one day after school. If I could have one Christmas wish it would be to have back that afternoon, and to take that picture and safely pack it away knowing how much it would mean to me someday. Then if someone should ever see her photograph and ask "who was that?" I could take out the drawing and show them. "She was my mother", I'd say, "and she had hidden talents."