Choices

“Something that you feel will find its own form.” - Jack Kerouac 

It’s funny how some memories can be really fuzzy, but others are as sharp as the day they happened. They stay sharp no matter how much time has passed. 

When I was in seventh grade, the other students in my class and I were handed some documents to take home to our parents. The documents explained what classes we would be taking the next year when we entered high school. English, science, history, math, etc. It also explained that we had to choose the final course, an elective. I wanted to take German but that wasn't offered until ninth grade. I scanned the list of classes and my eyes only saw one choice. I picked up my pencil and checked off art.

It was an easy choice. I was drawing all the time. I couldn’t remember a time that I hadn't been drawing. I had drawn my favorite toys, the starship Enterprise, the submarine Seaview, Christmas decorations, a bird skull, tigers, and the adventures of an alien with cheese in his name. Picking art as an elective in high school seemed like a natural progression.

When I got home I excitedly showed the papers to my parents. My father scanned the documents. He saw that I had checked art. He calmly erased it and changed it to shop class aka industrial arts. Working with wood and metal. I told him I’d rather take art. He told me that he had taken shop in high school and that’s what I would be taking. End of discussion. 

Except it really wasn’t a discussion. No one asked me what I wanted to take. No one asked me if it was okay to change my choice. It was just changed. To this day I still wonder why I didn’t speak up more or throw a tantrum or something.

So I wound up taking shop. I worked with metal but don’t remember finishing anything. I made a pretty nice spice rack out of wood. It was on the kitchen wall for a lot of years until my parents moved into a new house. Not sure what happened to it after that. 

During high school I lost interest in drawing. Instead of creating I started consuming. My interests turned to reading science fiction and fantasy, watching TV, and reading comic books. I devoured every issue of Starlog magazine. I flirted with writing a couple of times but I kept getting distracted. 

Fast forward to one day in twelfth grade, my senior year. Last class of the day. We were goofing around before the bell rang. One of my friends was drawing on the chalkboard. His drawing covered most of the board. Dragons, castles, and warriors. Suddenly I was thrown back to the day that my father changed my elective from art to shop. 

I hadn’t thought of that day in five years. I felt an overwhelming sense of regret wash over me. Regret for not speaking up. Regret for not taking art classes all through high school. But I also felt something else. I didn’t realize it at the time, but there was a tiny spark. Something that I hadn’t felt in awhile. It was back. The urge to create.

Next: A New Year