On The Wall

More than art, a collage is a way of ordering information, and of arranging imagery. I like to organize my thoughts in collage form. This one, for example, represents the tour de force of organization necessary for applying to a handful of creative writing programs while nursing my daughter with a bottle. This collage made it so that I didn't really have to remember or think much about it. It was all right there. On the wall.

When I was in elementary school, they painted the walls white and, one special day, let us third graders paint our names on the wall with brushes and buckets of deep vermillion. The teachers had really built the event up in our heads for a couple of weeks. We were all so excited. I couldn't wait. When I stepped up, brush in hand, though, the top part of the "J" in my first name started to drip. (The paint was runny.) The drip ran down the wall and even bumrushed the other kids' names. It looked like chaos. Third grader chaos. I tried to wipe it clean, but ended up making more of a mess. "You're making more of a mess!" a teacher said. Finally, I just hurried through the other 13 letters in my name, put down the brush, and escaped to the library.

My name dried that way for posterity. And whenever I'd walk down the hall after that, I'd see that renegade "J" and, in my obsessive way, want to fix it, to make it perfect. But I couldn't. It was permanent. (Say what you will about life's changes. The permanence of any situation can be a real bitch too.) Anyway, a year and a half later I graduated to middle school and was glad to escape that imperfect "J." Middle school brought its own travails, though. And soon I was yearning to be back in such a safe and supportive environment where a crazy little "J" was my biggest problem.

It's too bad kids are made to take things so seriously so early in their lives. How can we prevent this? How can I protect my daughter from my own anxiety? And why do I intuit that some way, somehow, collage making might be part of the answer?