Source: Raised to Action
My Real Memoir
The sky goes all the way down, I thought. Or at least it did where we lived. It didn’t in L.A. because the buildings got in its way. Mom used to work there, but when Dad got a new job, she quit. We were going to move to where Dad worked as soon as we bought a new home. Would the sky go all the way down there? I wouldn’t find out for another two months. So, in the meantime, I had to start Second Grade here in Downey.
I’d Always Been a Little Different
I didn’t see things the same way other kids did. That showed up the first week of school. It was Art Time, and we were supposed to color what we saw outside the classroom window. There was a lot of brown, unhappy grass, but the Big Shady Tree looked happy. And so did the honeysuckle vine that hugged the schoolyard fence. The sidewalk outside was covered with its “used” blossoms. Every kid at Gallatin School stopped to drain them of their little dots of nectar, because the most exquisite treats were the ones you could never quite get enough of.
And above all, there was the sky. Except that it wasn’t just above all. For every kid but me, sky was a blue stripe along the top of their picture. But that didn’t make sense because the sky didn’t stop at the top! I followed it all the way down to scientifically verify my findings. Yes, it definitely went all the way to the ground!
I yanked two blue-stripers out of their seats and dragged them over to the window. “Look,” I said, “the sky goes all the way down!”
“No, it doesn’t, dumbhead,” one of them explained.
“Yes, it does! Mrs. Peavey said it’s made out of the same stuff we breathe, so it has to be down here where we are!”
“It can’t be,” the other replied, “it’s the wrong Crayola color.”
Actually, the sky down here didn’t seem to be any Crayola color. “Well, that’s because it…it turns all see-throughy when it gets to us.”
“So then it’s not sky anymore, is it, dumbhead?”
The Following Week Was Worse
I drew a house on fire. Yes, I knew fire was supposed to be Red #238, but I was tired of red fire, so I drew Green fire…and Red water coming out of all the firehoses! And then I laughed.
My First Grade teacher Miss Peggy had liked that I was different. But it worried Mrs. Peavey. She took me to the school Counselor, who called my mom to see if everything was OK at home. “Yes,” Mom explained, “he’s just a little, you know, different.” The Counselor agreed.
So Mrs. Peavey put my picture up with all the others in time for Back to School Night. But I think she got a little tired of explaining to the parents, “Oh, that kid? Yes, everything’s OK at his home, he’s just a little, you know, different.”
To read My Real Memoir from the start, click here. To read the next episode, click here.
🤣
I wrote a feature story on an artist once for a magazine. She told me when kids go to kindergarten everybody gets a picture of an apple, and the teacher gives everybody a red crayon for the apple and a green crayon for the leaves and never stops to think a child might see an apple a different color so they begin warping their creativity before they even get started. My husband always said those children that are medicated for being hyper in the classroom are or our future poets and authors and artists, their creativity stifled cause they couldn’t sit still for the need to express themselves.
Kids can be so mean.
They can indeed, MKR.
You must be my twin separated before birth??😂
❤️🙏🤠
No doubt about it, C.A.
Mitch, you are such a good storyteller. I love your imagery. Unhappy grass, happy shade tree. Thank you for sharing through your posts so we can enjoy your writing! Robyn
Aw, my pleasure, Robyn, and thank you.
Sad that the one creative drawing in 2nd grade needs an explanation.
🧡
All the way down to the ground! Great, now I’ll have to recolor all my grade school artwork!!!
;>)
When my husband was in first grade he failed art because he didn’t paint the scene exactly the way it was shown. It was then that he discovered he was a free thinking artist. I imagine you were too.
Apparently so, Kathy. Although I find it more direct to just use the word “genius.” ;>)
INDEED🥸
Artistic license. There’s not an age where that begins. I did a purple Santa once that my mother thought was “ridiculous.” 😂
;>) Who’s to say Santa can change things up a bit, Mom? There’s nothing much else to do at the North Pole!
You were clearly an observant and truthful child. Why would you not say the sky goes all the way down to the ground when it clearly does?! Just like it meets the sea – yet no one questions that!
;>) Thanks, Lynn!
I think a house burning green on fire is cool. Since house fires are awful and we have to fight them anyway, what if they came in colors? Guess I’m a little different, too.
;>)
I really like the picture 😊😊😊
Adults are truly joy stealers.
It is our differences that add color and texture to life. Flat black and white can be boring if there is never any blue or green or mountains or valleys.
💚
This happens when kids spend too much time with adults and adult things: they forget how you see the world with open eyes as a child usually does. Unfortunatelly, “Mrs. Peavey”s are everywhere and a growing part of population. They undermine creativity. Luckily, they don’t always succeed.
The sky ends wherever houses, hills, and trees claim it for themselves — they steal it away. You gave it back, guided by an extraordinary early sense of justice. What’s out there, behind it, beyond it?
You began where most people spend their lives trying to get to. And that’s the very foundation of both science and art.
🧡
How kind of you, Re.
Gotta love Green Fire and Red Water (sounds like the title of a children’s book)
🧡
A vivid and reflective memoir excerpt—blending childhood perception with place and memory, and gently contrasting open skies with urban life. 🌤️✨
The house burning, I sense, was the inner child’s yearning to be understood. 😇
Sure, I’m up for any interpretation that makes me seem deep. ;>)
There was a girl in my first grade art class who drew the sky as purple. The kids around her laughed at her. She cried, and the teacher had to make sure she knew that purple was a fine colored for the sky.
💜
Pingback: Should I Celebrate My Own Birth? - Mitch TeemleyMitch Teemley
Pingback: The Sky Goes All the Way Down – QuietMomentsWithGod
So nice, “…it turns all see-throughy when it gets to us.” 🙂
;>)
If you know the child: happy, outgoing, friendly, you can accept his wild imagination. If the child is a loner, keeps to himself, tends to be skittish; his imagination might be something to investigate.
Pingback: A True Friend Is Always There - Mitch TeemleyMitch Teemley