Why I think Annie is an Artist

Not yet even one-and-a-half and this little person bends over and digs her little fingernail in the damp mud of the garden. Annie is deeply involved asI go about picking tomatoes. I recognize the same look across her face that I have felt inwardly many times through my childhood: as I pulled the thick paint across the kindergarten easel...as I molded a little arm of clay for a tiny earring for my friend...centering a pot on the wheel for the first time...

She is there. All there. In there.

I saw it again, Bible study night. She took my plain ball-point pen and began to scribble in my notebook, over the notes I had taken. Only it wasn't scribbling as we know it. She held the pen at the bottom, very gently, and her marks were likewise light and delicate. Her face was this: engrossed. At one point I took the pen from her (much to her upset--how dare I interupt!) and drew her a little dog face for her amusement. "Daw!" (dog) she said a couple times, and then proceeded to make her dainty pen marks all crosswise slowly over it.

I opened my little blue moleskine notebook (thank you Kathleen) again now. Her marks are infinitely more interesting than my words or my little dog face.

I want to go there again, Annie. Maybe you can lead me back to that place I have forgotten.