Learning From the Masters
Does that look like me? No, really, is that how I actually look? I'm not quite sure what's that thing on my head, but I guess drawing hair is a pain. And, yes, I do wear a cross around my neck, but it isn't the size of a golf club, and I certainly don't have crosses hanging all over me, like a Christmas tree. And I have never - ever in my life, waived one in my hand (I leave that to my Fathers). Also, if one would allow facts to get in the way, I stopped wearing pinks and purples in the third grade.
I have also noticed that the nine year old artist who painted me the other day wasn't even looking at me while working -- the master was sitting with his back turned to me, to be precise. Because he knows me so well. Unlike any other artist who would undertake the painful task, Aleksa doesn't need to measure the length of my nose, or the distance between my eyes, nor is he to be bothered with the exact shade of my jeans and the fact I had a bad hair day (if the "day" keeps on, I'll soon forget what a good hair day means).
Aleksa and I became best friends when I stopped bringing him books and chocolate bars, and got him a pile of computer games. When I managed to upload some of the space-guzzlers on his computer after his failed attempts, I earned the "you're GOOOOOD!!!" status and an open invitation to join him in the never-ending battle against trolls, or for carrot-stick points, or something to that effect. I was his art and iconography teacher in Sunday school, and I wrote icons of Christ Pantocrator and Mother of God for his home. His mother -- a very good friend of mine and my bride's maid -- told me Aleksa thinks I'm super-smart because I never mix English words in when I speak Serbian. So, he knows me. He knows me so well, he can draw a picture of me with his eyes closed.
And, truth be told, regardless of all the minutiae, that is me. In some strange way, while getting most of the details wrong, Aleksa got the gist of it, the emotion and the substance right. Isn't that all that really matters?