I Believe in Miracles

            Another day of English goes by and a paper-cut appears on my hand. Or maybe scissors created the blemish? Perhaps a crayon somehow scarred my hand. “Impossible!” you say to yourself.  “Only an idiot could cut himself with a crayon.” Well I have a confession to make: I am that idiot when it comes to art. In fact, when my English teacher informed the class last week that we would participate in a friendly competition involving creativity and imagination, my stomach landed on top of a freshman’s head while she sat in Mr. Kerul’s room. I hate art for a variety of reasons. To begin with, sharp objects and I go about as well together as Hanukah and Christmas. Let us flashback to my sixth grade year when my entire grade took a field trip to The Pond. To this day I do not understand how the ice became sprinkled with red while a puddle of blood formed in my right hand, all happening while part of my right pointer finger dangled from a thin piece of skin. I ended up losing that small portion of my finger and have the scar in remembrance. Again, I do not do well with sharp objects, like ice skates. Only to make matters worse, my siblings found it amusing to call me Peter Pettigrew the following month after the incident. Hopefully I have portrayed the fact that art utensils and I butt heads. My rock bottom creativity also adds to my distaste for crafts, such as creating collages. Allow me to explain. I think most teenagers enjoy decorating their Christmas tree with their siblings. I, however, can barely tolerate the experience. Many of my family’s ornaments come from the creations of the Stevenson children at young ages. Unfortunately, I learned how to draw a circle after I learned how to ride a bike. Therefore, the ornaments I created at a young age deem indistinguishable. My siblings, always the genuine supporting cast I need in my life, ask me if Stevie Wonder helped me meld together an attempted image of a star and manger. My creativity and skills with a marker depicted itself again just this past November. One of my mother’s friends walked into our home and pointed to one of my youthful decorations hanging on the wall: “Wow Barb! I cannot believe you’ve already started decorating for Thanksgiving!” In actuality, my mother had yet to relieve the walls from our Halloween decorations. Ouch. Despite these slight artistic disabilities, here I sit today, alive and well, writing on a keyboard with ten fingers and two eyes after cutting out magazines and gluing my hands together. I suppose miracles do have a tendency to happen.