A few days ago, I joined my daughter on the carpet where she sat making something out of stickers and listening to the audiobook of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I gathered some paper and a Sharpie and started sketching Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Charlie Bucket, and other characters from the story.
Parenthood has granted me a permission I’d mostly denied myself: permission to dive in and do things I’m basically bad at. Like drawing.
I draw now because I like to draw. I also draw because I hope the fact of me drawing — silently, happily — conveys a message to my kids that would just sound like static, hectoring lecturing if I came out and spoke it as often as I think it. The message: Don’t let yourself or anyone else tell you that you’re not perfect enough to do something that adds to your happiness. We will see in a couple of decades whether all of this has done my kids anywhere near as much good as it’s done me.
Today, I found my Augustus Gloop in the recycling bin. Stuck. I’d put him in there. He stayed stuck this afternoon when I emptied the bin into the bigger bin we roll out to the street on trash days. Something about the sight of my trapped Augustus made me want to take a picture. The dimness in the garage made it impossible to coax anything better than a muddy snapshot out of my phone’s camera. I went inside, got my good camera, shot, shot some more, opened the garage for more light, carried the bin outside, slid it in between two branches of a tree backlit by the dropping sun, and shot.
My treeing of Augustus Gloop is as indefensible as my sketching habit. I am not contrite.
