Show and Tell

I have to tell you about the artist that is my daughter Leah.

She doesn't get it from me... I might be a creative, but I'm not an artist. At least, not like she is. She's got a gift.

This last week Leah was home sick, and so on Monday after we dropped Susie off at school Leah and I went to run a few errands. We were driving down 44th, which is a curvy 5 lane road that leads away from our neighborhood out towards the shopping arteries - headed to Bed, Bath and Beyond to make some returns and pick up syrup for our Sodastream.

Leah pipes up from the backseat "Wow! That is an interesting tree! I would like to take a picture of that tree."

"Hmm?" I say.

"Mom! Do you have your camera with you? I want to turn around and take a picture of that tree I saw! It was really interesting!"

As it turned out, I did have my camera with me - so we agreed we would go do our errand, and then on the way back we would stop at the interesting tree and she could take a picture of it. I did not see the tree she was talking about, but she was pretty excited about it, and since we didn't have much of an agenda for the day I figured it wouldn't hurt anything to go on a picture-taking tree hunt with my 6 year old.

On our way back, Leah pointed out the tree to me and we stopped, pulling in to a church parking lot. Leaving the engine running, we got out in our coats and boots, Leah carrying the camera and me holding her hand, to go take a picture of the interesting tree. Turns out it was an interesting tree... very large and old, bare of leaves, with bark a mottled grey and white. The kind of tree you would imagine Ansel Adams photographing.

This tree is right on 44th - the busy, 5 lane road - which, thankfully, has a sidewalk. We go walk out to the tree and Leah looks up at it and says

"Not from here, mom, we have to go over there - I want to take the picture from over there."

"Over there" was across 5 lanes of morning traffic, on a golf course.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

We waited for traffic to clear, then crossed the street. Climbed up a berm on the golf course. Leah powered up the camera and zoomed in, then out, then in. Moved a few feet over. Zoomed. Waited for it to focus. Then snapped the shutter and said

"There! That is a good picture. Look, mom. I love the way it looks against the sky. What an interesting tree!"

And she was right. It is a good picture of an interesting tree. Taken by a six year old who spotted the subject from the backseat and actively composed the photograph she had pictured in her artistic mind... all in her pajamas and boots and fuzzy hair, while running errands on a sick day with her mother.