In the 4th grade I was an animal FREAK. I loved animals, and I loved to draw them. Loved them to the point of scaring any lil’ kid that ain’t love em.’ Every day when I came home from school, I'd watch and trace the neighborhood cats frolicking about in some neighbor's fields. I knew each single cat by the color of their coat. I’d even got to giving them Knick names. One was called dark Twighlight because of her dark silky coat. Another was named Athena because her eyes resembled the glimmering gold of an Athena statue I'd seen in a picture book. Oooh, but there was one cat in particular. A beautiful short-haired Abyssinian.  

       Her coat was an oaky reddish chestnut but her paws the homely white of a bedroom wall under a soft moonlight. She stood and walked with the elasticity and chutzpah of slingshot at cedar fair. Each and every time I saw her, my eyes stood stuck unmoving upon her figure. In hand, with pencil and paper. I would draw. Led slithering upon parchment. My palms caroming off of its ends.  Too many of times, passersby's would worry as I stared endlessly into a field of grass where she would commonly lay. They would often ask where my mother was or if I was alright, but my answer would always remain the same. “......Please leave me alone........” Truly little social skills I held.  

      For weeks I would watch and trace. Minute by Minute. Day by Day. Week by Week. I found utter joy in it. Drawing her became its own universe of artistry and expression. With the number of iterations of her I went through, you would assume me to be an even more crazy, new age Picasso. It wasn’t perhaps until 5 weeks in I stumbled upon my chef-d'oeuvre. That day, art came to life. Her nutty brown coat replicated to an exact degree. Her white paws whipped to the soft white of a pillow’s fluff. I thought this was it. All the sketches, all the drawings for this singular piece of art.  

    I took the drawing home and reveled in its beauty. Observing the way sunlight created a semi- renaissance picture. Observing the charcoal layering of lead. Observing the contrast of the coconut white parchment to dark red backdrop of the wall. It wasn’t until 7:00pm (quite late for a 9-year-old), that I figured it time to put the drawing away. So, I did, ever so carefully, neatly into a desk seated right near the corner of the wall, kissing it a nightly goodbye.  

    I moved on, to the next animal. A bird this time. A beautiful McCaw, with an almost mango like appearance. The process repeated itself as before. Took upon an obsession of it, until I again managed my grand symphony  

   I then moved on the next, this time it happened to be something more non-living. A rock. Its jagged, crystal edges proved to be of great fascination. The process repeating itself as before, I took upon my pencil and paper and drew until I reached what I believed best enough.

   Each time I entered one of these phases, I never had th.e ambition to withdraw. No matter the hours, days, nor weeks it took, my ambition drove me to strive