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Tehila's Not-So-Perfect Drawing

Ages 6-9 | Story and 9 activities

Tehila wants her picture to be perfect.

Her class is making cards for Bubby's seventieth birthday. Each child gets a big piece of paper and a box of crayons. Tehila decides to draw a beautiful garden, with roses and tulips and a bench in the middle.

She starts with the bench. She draws it once. The legs are crooked. She erases it. She draws it again. Now one leg is too long. She erases again, and the paper starts to look gray and smudgy.

"Ugh," she says.

She tries the flowers. The first rose looks like a cabbage. The second looks like a spiral. The tulips look like spoons. She crumples the paper, takes a new one, and starts over.

Her friend Sarah, sitting next to her, is already coloring. Her drawing has wobbly lines and a sun with a lopsided smile. But she is humming and having a great time.

"Why do you keep starting over?" asks Sarah.

"It's not good enough," says Tehila. "Bubby deserves a beautiful picture."

Sarah looks at her own. "Mine isn't beautiful. But I think Bubby will like it."

"How do you know?"

"Because she's Bubby. She keeps all my drawings on her fridge. Even the ones that look like potatoes."

Tehila stops. She thinks of Bubby's fridge, covered in crooked drawings. A purple cat with five legs. A house with the door on the roof. Bubby always says, "Look at this masterpiece!" and kisses the top of her head.

"She does keep them all," says Tehila slowly.

"Right."

Tehila looks at her third piece of paper. It has a crooked bench with one long leg, three roses that look a little like cabbages, and two tulips shaped like spoons. It doesn't look like a magazine garden. But it looks like something a real girl has made with real crayons.

She picks up a yellow crayon and adds a big sun in the corner. Then she writes, in her best letters: Happy Birthday, Bubby! I love you to the moon!

She steps back and looks at it. It is not perfect, but it is hers, and every line has her care in it.

She puts down her crayon. Her shoulders feel loose. She doesn't mind the wobbly bench anymore.

Mommy helps her tuck the card into an envelope. "You were so patient with yourself in the end," she says. Tehila smiles. She is a little proud, and a little surprised that it has been so easy once she lets go.

On Sunday, the family gathers for Bubby's party. All the grandchildren give her cards. Bubby opens each one slowly, with a smile.

When she gets to Tehila's, she holds it up. "A garden! Look at those roses!"

"They look a bit like cabbages," says Tehila.

"They look like love," says Bubby, and hugs her tight.

That Monday, Tehila sees her drawing on Bubby's fridge, right in the middle, with a heart-shaped magnet.

The next time she draws something, she makes one try. If she doesn't like a line, she keeps going. She learns that when you draw from your heart, it is already perfect enough.