It was cold last night, in the 30’s, and it will be same every night this week. The day is warmer, but not from the sun. It only drops in every now and then.

My mother made paste out of flour and water. We’d use it in our construction paper projects. I’d glob it on my fingers and smear the paste all along the edges of my paper. The right amount was critical- too much never dried; too little never held. I remember using the paste every Christmas to connect our paper chains. I also remember smears of paste on me mostly from wiping my fingers on my pants. The paste was easy to use; the scissors weren’t. The finger holes were too little, and my thumb always got caught.

One year I was given a box of Ding Dong School finger paints as a gift. It was like getting permission to be messy. The box had small jars of different colored paints, a couple of wooden sticks and lots of paper. I loved it. I’d sit at the kitchen and line up the paints then spread out my paper. It had to be held down on the corners: it came rolled. When I was done, my picture was beautiful, and the pants I was wearing  could have hung in an art museum, probably in the Impressionist gallery.

We used to get watercolors. They’d come in a long white tin. The colors were in a row. In  front of the colors was a hollow which held the brush. My mother would fill glasses with water. One was to wet the brush; the other was to clean it. We’d watercolor on all kinds of paper, even the newspaper. I remember how the spaces in between the colors used to get filled with watery drops which fell from the brushes as we went from the water to the paints and back again. We’d spend hours with those paints. Flowers were a favorite of mine. I remember daisies with long green stems. When I’d finish a masterpiece, I’d hold it up by the top two corners for my mother to see. She’d oh and ah. When it dried, she’d display it on the refrigerator. It was our art museum.