Clarissa's Blog

Klara told me a beautiful story that almost made me weep.

In class, the teacher put up on the board a picture of a candy corn and told the students to draw it.

Everybody copied the image on the board.

Except Klara who created a whole character out of it and drew something very different from the original.

Kids laughed at Klara.

“Ha ha, you can’t even copy a simple candy corn. Yours looks weird!”

But the teacher said, “I didn’t want everybody to make an exact same picture. I hoped you’d have fun with it, put your own touch on the picture.”

Klara’s candy corn won the prize for the best drawing.

I’m so happy, and I so wish my Dad were here to see this. That’s exactly how he was. Always doing his own thing. He was the kind of guy, it never occurred to him to follow orders or blindly imitate anybody.

I had to take Klara out of her art lessons because she’d completely ignore the teacher and do her own thing. “Why does Mrs Rosario have to make all that noise?” she’d ask. “She’s distracting me from my project.” The teacher kept saying, “Your kid is really gifted, if only she could follow instructions.” But I’m thinking, making your own decisions and coming up with your own instructions is a much bigger gift than knowing how to draw.

God, I wish I could tell my Dad.