Mrs. Brady’s Leaf

In kindergarten, things seem so scary but so wonderful. One of my favorite parts of class was art time. I wasn’t an ‘eat paste’ kind of kid. I liked the colors. I loved that there were so many colors and that I could use all of them for whatever I wanted.

I remember especially one day that we all enjoying art time. It was during the fall and our art teacher, Mrs. Brady, had us all draw a tree. We were going to paint it with and then use little leaf shaped sponges for our foliage. I had a layer of browns and reds and oranges covering my tree, like the other kids, but I wanted to make purple. Some trees have leaves that turn a purple-ish color and I wanted to show that in my painting.

When I started to squirt out some the purple paint, my regular kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Walker, came over and spanked me for ‘wasting’ paint. She said, “There aren’t purple leaves. Use the colors you have.”

I was so upset. I was confused as to why I was being punished for using my imagination. This didn’t make sense. I put down my sponge and started to cry.

Mrs. Brady saw me and came over to see what was wrong. I told her about being popped for using another color of paint. She looked upset and told me to go back over to the table and use whatever color of paint I wanted to. She said, “The leaves on your tree are whatever color you want them to be. No one can decide that but you.”

That was almost twenty years ago. Since then, I’ve had many colors in many paintings, but whenever I paint a tree, there’s a little purple leaf on it. It’s for Mrs. Brady.