Prose, The Weight of the Lead..........................Evie Andrews ’23

The Weight of Lead

Evie Andrews ’23

I peered cautiously at the strange utensil before poking it and picking it up with two fingers. I knew what it was … sort of. We’ve all read about them and seen old films and movies where people use them, but it never occurred to me that I would see one in person.

I knew you were supposed to hold it like a fork, with your fingers closer to the pointy end. I turned around, and he gave me an encouraging nod. I knew what I was supposed to do, but I wasn’t fully sure how to start. Slowly, with big, nearly illegible letters, I wrote three words. I love grandpa. I realized I had forgotten a period, but I was stunned to see that nothing told me to add one. No red underline popped up. No vibration alerted me to my mistake. Grandpa laughed and said, “It’s paper, not a computer. You can write or draw whatever you want on it.”

Draw? I wondered for a moment at the page. Finally, having made a decision, I etched out a small heart. The right side was much larger than the left. Next to that one, I tried again. This time my lines were a little straighter, but that damn right side was still too big. “Here, try using light strokes,” Grandpa offered. “I’ll try it,” I sighed. This was turning out more cumbersome than I thought it would be. In my frustration, I pushed the pencil forcefully against the paper, and there was a loud crunch as the tip snapped and fell to the ground. I started to panic. “Grandpa, I broke it! I’m so sorry!” To my surprise, he let out a hearty chuckle. He took the splintered pencil, and saying, “Watch this,” he walked over to an odd, oval-shaped mechanism. He turned a dial on the side until he found the hole big enough to suit his purpose. I surveyed him closely as he slipped the pencil into the hole and began turning the handle on the opposite side. “Did you know,” he said as he turned it, “when I was your age, we used pens and pencils for just about everything?” I felt my eyes opening wider, giving away my surprise. “In fact, I didn’t use a computer at all in

continued next page

some of my classes.” I gave him a sly smile. “Is that why you’re such a slow typer?”

“Seventy-two words a minute is not slow!”

“Grandpa, the slowest in my class types two hundred words per minute!” He rolled his eyes and smiled, handing me a nice sharp pencil. I decided to try drawing a star this time, taking his advice and using a light grip. “What’s all this stuff you’re saying about drawing? Were there people who were really good at it?” The star looked better, but the lines were so squiggly it gave the appearance that the whole star was shaking. “Yes, for some people, being an artist was their job. Slow down, take your time there.” He pointed at my star. “Are you good at art?” I questioned. He gave a weak smile and said, “No, not me.” He lied.

One night after dinner, he took me in his car and we drove for a while away from his house. We parked in front of a large, square building with big glass windows on one side and acres of sunflower fields stretching in every direction. I wondered when the sunflowers ended and the roads began again. When we walked through the doors, I recognized the building as a museum right away. The long, white walls were cracked in places, and the ceiling tiles had fallen out from underfunding. The piercing lights brought out every small detail in the space. We paid a small fee at the entrance, and then I followed grandpa as he made his way towards the nearest painting.

From a small, blue backpack, Grandpa removed two sheets of paper, two pencils, and two thin boards of wood with large metal clips on one side. He handed me one of each, and I watched him closely as he secured the paper under the clip. I copied him, trying to make the paper match up perfectly even with the sides. When I looked back up, Grandpa was sitting cross legged on the floor. He had begun a rough sketch of the painting in front of us. I surveyed the painting with its long, autumn-colored mountains and wispy clouds in the background. The plaque next to the painting informed me that it was an oil on canvas. I wasn’t quite sure what that meant. I drew what I thought was a pretty good horizon between the

mountains and the sky, but after I peeked over Grandpa’s shoulder, my “skyline” looked like a shapeless blob. He had only finished half of the first valley, but the details of the trees and the strokes of his pencil were already beautiful. I sat down and heaved a heavy sigh. Without looking up, Grandpa smiled and said, “Art takes time. If you don’t put care and energy into it, you’ll never know how meaningful it could have been. If you want to make it meaningful, it takes time.” I lifted my pencil and began again, starting a tree, and building it up from the branches at the bottom to the finishing leaves at the top. Suddenly, a voice came over the speakers informing us that the museum was closing in five minutes. We had been sitting on the ground in front of the fall mountains for nearly three hours, and I had just begun my second tree. Grandpa leaned over to see what I had drawn, and when he looked at my tree he remarked, “That’s very good.” I knew it was nowhere as advanced as his sketch, but I had to agree. For me, it was the most amazing thing I had ever created.