@@@@@ Big girls don't help eitherI'm so mad at
@@@@@ Big girls don't help
eitherI'm so mad at them, why don't you listen,
YOU BIG MEANIES! Then one day the twins come,
Tessie and Lo-LoThey talk special to each other,
listen special to meThey don't understand me at
first, but thenTessie bring me paperLo-Lo
bring me pencil and I "Ben-cil!" out my mouth and
it makes them claff and lap their hands
She thinks I CAN ALMOST SAY THE NAME OF PENCIL!
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She thinks I can make the world on paperI can
draw what the words meanI see tree, I make tree
I see bird, I make birdIt's good, like water
from a glass
This is a little girl with a bandage wound around
her head, wearing a little pink housecoat and
sitting beside the window in her father's study
Her doll, Noveen, lies on the floor beside her
She has a board and on the board is a piece of
paperShe has just succeeded in drawing a claw
that actually does bear a resemblance to the dead
loblolly pine outside the window
She thinks I will have more paper, please
She thinks I am ELIZABETH
It must have been like being given back your
tongue after you thought it had been stilled
foreverIt was a gift of
herself, of ELIZABETHEven from those incredibly
brave first drawings, she must have understood
what was happeningThe best gifts - and the
worst - always are
4 - Friends with Benefits
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i
On New Year's afternoon, I woke from a brief but
refreshing nap thinking of a certain kind of shell
- the orangey kind with white specklesI don't
know if I dreamed about it or not, but I wanted
oneI was ready to start experimenting with
paints, and I thought one of those orange shells
would be just the thing to plop down in the middle
of a Gulf of Mexico sunset
I began prospecting southward along the beach,
accompanied only by my shadow and two or three
dozen of the tiny birds - Ilse called them peeps -
that prospect endlessly for food at the edge of
the w