I remember when my aunt brought a painting home from an art show when I was around six years old. It was a huge tree, with a dark trunk and thousands of bright leaves. The leaves were really the whole painting. There were so many, so beautiful, so bright...it must have taken the artist forever to paint them all. As incredible as I see this now, back then all I saw were a bunch of pieces of colour all thrown together. But as simply as I saw the painting, I saw how my aunt reacted to it. She was so happy she posessed something so beautiful. She was happy just looking at it, she told everyone she knew about it.

I tried to copy that painting hundreds and hundreds of times. I sat at my kitchen table with my crayons and cake watercolor paints, trying so hard to duplicate this amazing painting. But every time I finished a painting or drawing, and I showed it to my aunt, she'd just kind of laugh at me, laugh at my drawing, or my attempt to create something so awe-inspiring as her painting. It frustrated and saddened me. I'd sit there drawing and painting, listening to "Time After Time" on my pink radio...trying so hard to do something so impossible.

After awhile, I stopped trying to duplicate her tree. I went outside and built sandcastles in my sandbox, I rode my bike, I drew people and places, I played house, I started to run. I ran a lot more. Running became what I did. I ran until I broke my ankle, then I bought some paints and started painting a picture. At first it was just a hill, a stream, and the sky at night. I liked what I painted, but it needed something more. I noticed the paint set my mom had given to me on my desk, and went to see what I might do with the colours in there. I think the name of the colour was "yellow ochre", but when I saw it, the only thing I could think of was that tree I saw eleven years ago. I decided I'd paint a tree in my picture, but this one would be different. It wouldn't have a thousand beautiful leaves, it wouldn't have any leaves at all. So I painted the most beautiful leafless tree I could. I mixed almost every colour I had with that yellow ochre to get depths and characteristics of these trunk and branches. I worked on that painting for four days. I mixed so many colours for just one little spot time and time again, in my room, listening to Pink Floyd.

This isn't all about a couple paintings of trees. This is how I am with everything. I'll watch someone become so speechless with with something they think is beautiful, and I'll try to copy it. I want them to think something of mine is that beautiful. Someone will be amazed with a painting of a tree, a song, or someone else's love...and I'll want them to be amazed by me. So I'll paint the same tree, sing the same song, or love them like that someone else does. And its never the same. I can never copy perfectly anything. I'll persist too; I'll keep trying until they won't even look at my tree or hear my song or feel my love.

Then I'll finally realize that photocopies are never as good as the original, and I'll do it my way. My tree came out pretty good. I just hope it doesn't take me eleven years to realize this for everything...