Painted rocks and hail
Mary invited me to a cozy outdoor block party the day before Easter. A picnic table was covered with a red and white checked tablecloth and soon kids and adults were elbowto-elbow at the edge of a cul de sac. When I am among new-to-me families, I love staring at parents and their kids to note the similarities.
Mary bought sets of handy paint pens and white ceramic eggs. A mom arrived in a minivan with more kids and a bag of smooth river rocks.
As is often the case with amateurs and painting supplies, the goal was to flex a little artistic muscle, rather than create something worthy of the art gallery.
I was focused on the flow of pigment and humming with one fist hoarding three shades of green. My go-to design is a meandering vine, because you can’t mess up and the process is hypnotic.
I painted some inspirational words on my rocks, and plan to put them in a potted plant and never notice again.
When I looked to the right, I realized the sixth grader on the bench had some real talent. Her flowers could have been in a botanist’s journal in the 1700s. I wasn’t surprised to learn she attends the Waldorf school where I was a teacher from 2018-2019. Most lessons at Blue Oak School include drawing and painting. By the time I arrived to teach my class, most of the kids were better artists than their teacher.
Yet, I learned to love art as a process. To encourage my students, I practiced and practiced at home the night before an art activity. I was never embarrassed that my art looked like a third grader, nor that my third graders’ art was better than mine.
My students who were not as accomplished artists as their peers could always feel accomplished that the art on their own paper was better than the art on the chalkboard.
One night I stayed up until the wee hours, preparing to draw a farm scene using linear perspective. Basically, I memorized a how-to video on YouTube.
“You’re getting a lot better,” one of my students said encouragingly.
Halfway through my second rock at the picnic table in the cul de sac, one of the dads warned the artists that it would rain in 17 minutes. Some of us looked up from the picnic table and noticed a doozy of a gray
cloud bullying its way toward Palmetto Avenue. Moms appeared and soon the rocks and pens were placed into piles and children obligingly headed to the shelter of an open garage. Men moved the picnic
table with only three minutes to spare.
Heavy drops of rain beat on the family’s lettuce plants and clogged the rain gutters, which had not carried this much rain since 2020. The cloud emptied its wet load and along came the hail.
The young arts swoon switched to dance, undaunted.
When you’re 10 or seven or five, a rare rain is a big treat. The sky barked and the dancing picked up the beat. They twirled and ran and one child turned a cartwheel.
For the toddler of the group, this may have been the very first hail storm.
I can remember vividly my first big-sky storm, during a summer visit to
my aunt’s farm in Arkansas. She warned it would soon rain because the
June bugs had covered the screens over the windows, and it just “smelled like a storm.”
We had arrived at night, after a long, long drive in grandma’s camper. When the thunder cracked, the lightning lit up the sky so brightly I could view my
aunt’s yard in snippets, clear as day.
I wasn’t scared of the thunder and lighting. I was in awe.
“Woo-hoo,” the children yelled in the driveway near the cul de sac. A little rain is reason enough to celebrate. when you share what’s growing on. Reach out at sowtheregardencolumn@ gmail.com, and snail mail, P.O. Box 5166, Chico CA 95927.