Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Tools to Create and Destroy


When I was little I would get into so much trouble with my hands. All the time. Mom would go nuts after finding me sitting at the table, big ol’ blobs of paint squeezed out of those tiny watercolor tubes…or worse yet, I got my hands on her acrylics…but I could not resist. Then she’d just get exasperated when I got mad after I smooshed all those wonderful colors together and it all turned to that purple-brown poo color.

Went to town on the big bathroom mirror with her lipsticks.

And the nail polish.

Locked myself in a room and started “painting” on paper with all her nail polish. My brother ratted me out after smelling the nail polish fumes wafting out under the door. I remember starting to feel a little weird in the head while pouring all the polish out.

She lined the hallway walls with butcher paper because she knew I’d draw there spankings or no spankings, but didn’t realize until years later that I also doodled on the underside of the dining room table. And a little bit at the back of a closet.

Then there was the time I went to bed with Silly Putty because I wanted to make animal shapes…and fell asleep. Woke up to mom swearing under her breath while trying to pull it out of my hair. It makes a neat noise when you chew it, by the way. Don’t sue me if you do this and get poisoned.

My hands weren’t always getting into inadvertent mischief, however. There was a time in my early years when I remember waking up with weak hands. Could barely make a fist and took until breakfast was ready to get them to wake up. Vaguely remember the doctor telling my mom to have me spend time working with my hands before I went to sleep, so she had me doing origami. Ducks, cranes, inflatable balls, boats…all of them coaxing life into my hands. I’m curious to know what that was all about. It did go away in time, but I’d like to know what was wrong with me back then.

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