Thanksgiving

I had dinner with Will, Lisa, and their family for Thanksgiving. It was such a nice time and an opportunity for me to participate vicariously in something I always longed for but never experienced as a child. I tried to make such times for my own family when I became an adult, but in my own mind, at least, it never came off. I loved seeing the loaded table, the candles, the pretty dishes. The traditional meal was served in abundance and appreciated to the fullest by three generations. It was a congenial group that lacked, for me anyway, the underlying resentment, tension, and rage the characterized the family gatherings of my childhood. It was pure pleasure.

Audrey, the youngest in attendance, made drawings for everyone, and this is mine. She has incredible powers of observation that most adults do not posess. Imagining how the wings of the turkey would look from the front as they folded along the side of the bird, the perspective of the beak and wattle, and how the tail feathers fan out to both sides of the turkey's neck are feats of foreshortening that many of my former adult students never could grasp. Her sense of implied form is amazing, as she draws people partly hidden behind walls or peeking out of boxes. She can draw people lying down from the vantage point of the bottom of the bed, the huge soles of their feet facing front, their small distant heads staring between the feet at the viewer. There is almost always a sense of humor lurking somewhere, too, which Audrey does not point out, but leaves for her audience to discover if they will. The joke, as the rest of the drawing, seems to be mostly for her own enjoyment. I get a kick out of my turkey with its foot resting on the rock.