When I was a kid, I liked to draw. I have hazy memories of pages & pages of comic book heroes & adventurers I created & started stories about & mostly never finished. All in pencil. Even though I read comics religiously, & knew there were things called "inkers," I was never curious enough to say, "What does that mean? Could I get better at drawing things? How would I do that?"
It should be noted that, at the time, doodling comics was not something anyone thought was a worthwhile endeavor, except maybe the people doing it, & some admirers, like me. My siblings didn't care anything about my interests, so there was no encouragement there. & I, I was probably too shy & self-absorbed to ask anyone for guidance. It is something I still don't do, & more & more I realize how dumb that is.
& anyway, I don't think I had the skills or the desire to be part of that world. Because those who did the work I read & loved faced greater hurdles but wanted it, wanted it more than anything else in the world. Then, as now, I was quite lazy.
But, again, no one in my family thought any of my scribblings were worthwhile. In fact, one day, in seventh grade, I came home from school & found the closet where I kept my papers, years of them, for elementary school up, in a couple of boxes, I found that closet "straightened up." My things were gone. When I asked where they were, I was told they had been thrown away.
Of course I was startled & hurt. My sister Pat was visiting & I guess she helped my mother do some cleaning. There were things in that box that I had drawn, that I occasionally returned to, little half-page comics I had made in third & fourth grade which I shared with friends. How strange & wonderful it would be to see those things again! But they disintegrated in a city dump so long ago.
Thinking about it, I can't remember if I cried, but I must have. I was a very tearful boy, a crybaby of the old school. Years later, in a very damaged state, someone struck me - it's a long story - & I just burst into tears like I was that seventh grader again, who had discovered that nothing was really his, that things he valued were just garbage & clutter to the adults who were supposed to be role models & mentors for his life. I had learned the arrogant disrespect that the old inherently feel for the young; I had learned that those who know better know very little, especially about those in their care whom they are supposed to be nurturing.
Since that day I have lost so much more, & most of it not written in pencil; the subsequent drawings I guarded fiercely, & the last time I looked at them - it's been over seven years now, since I boxed them up when we moved from West Virginia to Kentucky - many of the pencil marks on those pages have faded. My first novella - a horribly rushed pastiche of Kurt Vonnegut & comic books that my friend Terri actually read & told me, "It's terrible" before I took it away from her - it's all but illegible now, as I wrote it in pencil, both sides, its awfulness soon to be indecipherable - it was in there, too, & there was a comfort in its presence if not in its reminder of my talentless self.
These are the sad things I think about when I think about pencils. But is it really sad?
No comments:
Post a Comment