I was enjoying a walk around a beautiful park when a wave of children ebbed and flowed around me.  They were accompanied by young boys, no older than 17 or 18.  These children were equipped with a piece of paper and a colored marker with the instructions to draw some of the park's most interesting objects: gazebos, statues, vine arbors.  They were energetic with large eyes drinking in the landscapes of the park.



For some unknown reason, I asked a small boy, who was at most five or six years old, "Can I see your drawing?"



Without hesitation, this small child turned his drawing toward me.  In less than a second, this boy bypassed all the angst felt by every artist, writer and musician, not to mention highly sensitive people who express their thoughts and creations, and he unabashedly became the most vulnerable person I've seen in a long time.



He literally took my breath away.



"Oh, I like it!" I said to him.  "Very nice."  The red marks on his paper could have been called chicken scratches, but to me they were perfect.  I would gladly have displayed them on my kitchen cupboards, where all little children's work live.  At least, in my house.



I will never see that child again.  Most likely, he will learn the ways of the world.  Either from disinterested parents, mocking siblings, friends and acquaintances who tell him their opinions.  We all learn this kind of lesson, at some point in our lives.  There is never a time where self-expression isn't dismissed, disapproved or disgraced.  The hardest lesson in life we ever have to learn is how we deal with the emotions and reactions of others.  What people say and do to us has nothing to do with who we are and everything to do with who they are.  That is a lesson we are not told, it is one of those life lessons that most of the time we are just expected to learn.  It's a tough one, all right.



I will never see that boy again.  Although, amidst his learning the lesson of individuality, I hope he remembers that one unknown woman who liked his drawing.