Tag: Children

This is Aveline’s little art space — our old 1940s table, tucked into the corner of our apartment, with big windows all around it. At any given time, the table is covered with large pieces of paper, spiral-bound sketch pads, tiny blank books, stickers, markers sorted by color, bits of crayons broken in half, and a few plastic animals scattered across the table. There’s almost always a fedora and a hula hoop hanging off the back of one of the wooden chairs.  There’s a pendant from her baby shower and stars from when she turned two.

And there’s a view, too, because if you duck down and look through the windows at just the right angle, you see a tree instead of a toll booth, an exit ramp, a chain link fence, or other apartment buildings.

When she sits here, wearing an old gingham pinafore which used to be mine, she counts to thirteen skipping five, and she draws letter A’s and numby 2’s and letter Z’s and circles and faces and eyes and airplanes.

When she draws, she flies to a world far, far from here.

I hope she can always get lost this way.