Why Twisted Pineapple? (The Easel)

I had prepared a different blog for today, but I was unhappy with the results. I may return to it a different time, but for now I choose to include a (semi-autobiographical) piece I wrote about a year ago regarding a dramatic experience during my pre-school years. Here it is:

The Easel and I

In my pre-school years, my teachers bought a beautiful bright blue easel. I remember how all the children were so fond of it, especially the day that it was first introduced to our eager class of energetic three and four year olds. It was the new toy, sure to capture every child’s attention!What wonders did it behold?  Only imagination could tell. Curiosity and intrigue lit up the excited faces of my joyous classmates.The children, entranced, flocked around the class gift with an unrivaled enthusiasm for an entire week.

I was timid as a child and stood on the outskirts of the easel in wonder as I peaked in as each child painted. Possibilities appeared endless: with a fair mixture of colors available for disposal and boundless imagination, the sheer volume of liberty at one’s fingertips astounding! I was in awe. However, my shyness got the best of me and my opportunity to use the easel was delayed until the following week. By that time, it had lost its mystique for most of the other children who had returned to playing with dolls, reading picture books, and stacking blocks. My own interests, however, were still far from gratified

After lunch that Monday, my chance finally arrived when my teacher asked if I would like to use the easel. At first, I had been unsure, looking around and behind myself in confusion. Me? Was she speaking to me? My teacher giggled and asked again, this time making direct eye contact. She was offering it to me! I smiled and nodded while she set me upon the stool in a smock and began to gather the assortment of paints from the art supply closet. I grinned at the white sheet of paper draped upon the easel that seemed to beckon me to it. Try and paint me, it teased. Draw on me to your young heart’s content! Let your colorful dreams run wild through me! With a dip of the paint brush and with a simple, yet empowering stroke, I entered an incredible bliss like no other.

I’m not sure how long I continued to paint. There was no line of children behind me and my teachers presented me with a limitless supply of paper. It must have been hours, yet it felt like a wonderful eternity. Time had stopped, as I became engrossed in each and every piercing stroke and intricate flitter of the paint brush. It was I who was the master in charge, I who made each and every artistic decision.  The pictures were my own unique creations, expressive reflections of myself. I was laying my tiny heart out on paper for all to see.  Through a sense of affirmation, my teacher only invigorated the heart of my budding passions.

“Look at him,” she exclaimed. “I think we have a real amazing artist at our hands”

I gloated, smiling proudly. I was emboldened in every way possible. For it is one thing to feel amazing, but quite another to be told you are so. No longer was I the meager and ordinary pre-schooler. The creative liberty I was given, but most importantly the positive recognition from my teacher, had made me legendary. Throughout the remainder of the school day, each of my creations continued to be laced in compliments from the instructors who eyed my work. I could hardly prevent my small rosy cheeks from gleaming in pride.  I was good. I was really good.

Tearing me away from the easel at dismissal was a heart breaking affair as I reluctantly loosened my grip on the paintbrush; a paintbrush that armed me with a confidence and self-worth unprecedented in my life thus far. The paintings which I would bring home and plaster upon my walls were testaments to my new found significance.  In my adoration, I bid the easel goodbye. I’ll reunite with you once again, I almost whispered. I promise.

            The next day of classes, at 9:30, I had raced to the easel, but was met with a disappointing sight. Another child, a feisty classmate named Jimmy, was already seated, smock and all, upon the stool. Eyes wide, he shifted in his chair and played with his fingers, waiting for the teacher to retrieve the materials. My spirits were crushed, and I couldn’t help but glare at him. A classroom helper must have seen my dissatisfaction because she turned to me and softly grasped my shoulder, “Don’t worry, your turn will be next. Go over and play with the blocks and I’ll call your name when it is time.”

 I had been disappointed, but I followed her directions. I joined the crowd of boys by the blocks and began to mindlessly help stack a tower like the rest. My mind was adrift, still on the easel. What could I paint today? Houses… A plane…A car… Yes, maybe a car-

“Very beautiful, Jimmy!” the teacher’s shrill voice interrupted my thoughts. Startled by the compliment so similar to mine the other day, I had glanced toward the easel, ready to admire Jimmy’s work. My eyes met a surprise as I scrunched up my eyebrows in confusion. Jimmy’s picture looked like a repulsive bulging mass of brownish-black smudges spread across the once clean white page. I was horrified. Was I missing something?

“Ah, yes,” said another teacher winking at the first teacher. “You are quite the artist!”

This all had struck me as odd. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. The picture Jimmy had painted was all too atrocious for me to find any beauty, whatsoever. In fact, I detested it.  It was a warped mishmash of lazy splatters that looked like a mess. Still, I was most astonished at the response from my teacher. Was she seeing the same picture as I? I examined her face.  Her eyes didn’t appear to betray the sincerity of her remarks, as her face was no different from when she had spoken to me the week prior. Unless… I shuddered. I scratched my head, confused and distraught.

For the rest of that day, thoughts hovered over me. The day dragged on at a slow pace as an ominous gloom settled in my mind. With my ecstatic spirits vanquished and my memories soured, I was lost in terrible thoughts. Thoughts I didn’t want, but lingered all the same.

I was ready to explode by the time I arrived home. At the first chance I had, I told my father my story.

“Did my teacher… lie?” I asked upon ending my story.

His eyes shifted before locking with mine.

“Well, I don’t know… What do you think?” he asked sternly.

I gazed at the walls of the kitchen adorned with my pretty paintings before answering.

They were pretty, weren’t they?

“I don’t know,” I said to my father grimacing. I paused. “But I think so, I guess.’

My teacher wouldn’t lie, would she? She wouldn’t dare deceive Jimmy… or me.
“Son, you see, sometimes, people-” He sighed loudly. “Well, first off I wouldn’t exactly call them lies, they’re just, gentle stretches of truth. Yes, that’s what they are. They aren’t created to harm anyone-in fact, it’s for quite the opposite reason. Don’t take it wrong. It’s just that not all lies are all that bad… it just depends on the situation. Son, are you crying.  Don’t bother your little head about it! It is none of your concern.”

“Just say it,” I whispered while trying to hide the overwhelming anguish that was overtaking me.She had lied, I was now sure of it. Once a liar, always a liar. How foolish I had been to believe that my teacher’s compliments toward my own work were sincere!

Reality hit me like a brick. Devastated, torn inside as if the paintbrush was stripped from my hands forever, I violently turned away from my father and the paintings I had once so proudly displayed on the wall as trophies, and cried alone in the brooding darkness of my room. My passions, my love of painting was all diluted by lies.

How worthless my paintings seemed now!  The encouragement my teachers had produced, now proven of questionable value, no longer lifted me up, but instead weighed down on me.

I wanted to rip my paintings to shreds and to somehow run far, far away from the hailstorm of hurt stirring inside of me. I sat with an unfillable emptiness, a gaping hole of nothingness, that was creeping into me. I felt shallow, lacking.

Lies that’s all it was. Lies. Lies, Lies. 

The bright blue easel and I never reunited.

Alas, this story is true, if not in details, but in spirit. For I do remember an easel long ago in my preschool classroom. In fact, there were a few of them. And I observed a situation similar to the one described in which teachers complimented the work of a student whose name I cannot recall that led me to questioning my mother. While my mother applauded my precocious awareness, it was as much a curse as a gift.

I sit on the sidelines, often in my life, and see what I shouldn’t: what can be nasty and painful more than beautiful. I am curious, but curiosity can kill you. And time and time again, I have been forced to confront the undesirable. Many will say such clarity of vision is admirable, but I know this is only true to a degree. For there comes a time when you wish you could, like all others, return to the days when you unknowingly wore the rose tinted glasses, to the moments were you were infinite, unstoppable, incredible in importance. And really, such delusions are not all that bad. Often, they motivate you. Propel you to unknown heights. But, alas, I lived a cursed life… A life where I am to face what is and one where I am not offered to comfort of delusion.

I think, in a way, this awareness is what draws me to dark humor. I enjoy what is deep, intense, and disturbing, because it mirrors my own thoughts. And, only by making light of the morbid through laughter, can I get through the day. This blog is to me an outlet for my own mind in which I can expose my own brooding thoughts that coincide with my reading interests.I call my blog Twisted Pineapple because I know the name is absurd, and I know life can be the same. All you can do, is have sense of humor and laugh. So laugh on...until you die.