Pencil Lines

In an age of computers, some objects are quickly acquiring a nostalgic quality. During some spring cleaning , I came across several boxes of new pencils. Leftover from my son's elementary and middle school days. I kept a few, and added the rest to a box I fill every spring cleaning and I donate along with clothes to charity. The pencils tugged at my heart. I draw my designs for my embroideries in pencil still before I start on the stitchery. Pencil lines are soft, and can be modified with gentle erasing. When I was a teenager, I wrote my first poems in pencil in a small pink notebook. I found it interesting that I made a great effort not to have to resort to the use of an eraser. Each word seemed a friend I owed some respect. I loved drawing in pencil, especially flowers and butterflies. I still do. And I became fond of pencils with designs on them, and so was my son when he was a child. I kept one of his Tigger pencils, and use it to this day. Pencil lines are modest, and yet very visible. The thing that always both fascinated and bothered me was that they are so easily removed, or erased. It made me think of people. It seems they can be like pencils marks, there one minute, gone the next. The weather was beautiful over the weekend, sunny, bright, warm, all the birds singing under a blue sky, and it made me feel visible, useful, energized, happy. The last few days, as is promised for the next week, it has been raining, and the skies and just about everything under it, has turned grey and cold. It made me think of darker pencil lines. It also made me feel like someone up there was going around with a big eraser that turned everything invisible, including me. It was a discouraging feeling. But, I figured it would be a temporary one, much like the pencil lines themselves. And with some effort, I would be able to add some pencil lines myself, and draw in a sun and bird or two into that bleak looking sky right now. Friendships can be like pencil lines, it seemed to me. They add depth and richness to our own lines, and when we lose a friend, it seems part of the drawing that is our life, goes missing. It is the same with family we have lost for whatever reason. Part of the lines that defined our picture, are missing. Some days it is easy to add new lines and fill in the painful gaps, and other days, the effort seems futile, and all we end up with is a broken eraser, a busted pencil tip, and on really bad days, a hole in the drawing paper. I remember putting tape over homework where I had rubbed a hole in the paper. My teachers never said anything, but they sure were not impressed either. I thought it was rather a practical solution. The holes always made me feel a bit whimsical in my embarrassment, it was a bit of rebellion against tedium, and over time I became fond of little holes. In paper, especially, they are such a humble reminder not to take ourselves and our efforts too seriously. A chirping bird outside my window just now added another pencil line, one that made me smile. Rain and grey skies or not, spring was here to stay. I better sharpen those pencils, and add in some more birds, and a sweet Blue Cabbage Moth or two.