A couple years ago I was attending the high school graduation of a friend’s son. It was one of those lovely early June evenings in Western Massachusetts, where the sun lies low in the sky, stretching the long shadows of voluptuously green leafed maples across the lawns. We had gathered in the football field on folding metal chairs; slapping at the mosquitoes that hovered to feed on our bare ankles, waiting for the Class of 2010 to march onto the field to the strains of Pomp and Circumstance.

As we waited, I began to watch the little girl in the row in front of me.  She was about four years old, with her long blond hair in a ponytail, lose strands tucked behind her ears, and was wearing a cotton summer dress. Her parents had brought a stack of white paper to entertain her during the graduation. She was kneeling in the grass, using the seat of the metal folding chair as a table top. She had a sharp pencil in hand and she was drawing, completely oblivious to all the grownups that were shifting in their seats, looking around for friends to greet, saving seats, and keeping the general busy unrest we adults all exhibit prior to ceremonies such as these.

She was drawing with pure joy. Her little tongue would peek out in concentration as she put pencil to paper and would draw a beautiful woman, or a horse, or dog, or a house with the sun shining over top. She never paused in her drawing to consider whether a line might be off. Never stopped to erase and correct an image. She just drew, in one continuous fluid motion, assured, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that her vision was perfection. She completed the drawing within minutes, if not seconds. Then she would stop, put down her pencil and hold the drawing up in front of herself to admire her creation. She would smile at the drawing, sigh in utter contentment, set the drawing on her mother’s lap and begin a new masterpiece on the next piece of blank paper in her pile.

When do we lose that, I pondered, in my metal folding chair behind her.  At what point do doubts begin to surface in our minds that what we create is not perfect? At what point do we first stop to consider that our lines might be off? When do we first lose that confidence and stop drawing to erase?  When do we begin to look at our efforts so critically, that we are afraid to even draw the line in the first place, and begin to believe that our efforts don’t measure up? At what point do we create an arbitrary image of what perfection is, in our own minds? Wouldn’t  it be wonderful if we could hang on to a bit of our inner four year old and maintain the confidence to create with abandon…..and not be afraid to wave it around, show it off, and sigh at it with utter contentment?

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