Anticipating: The arrival, later this week, I hope, of the third book in the Harry Potter series. I received a notification from Amazon.com that it has been shipped by Priority Mail.

My Monster

The Artist's Way group for online journalers that Kate and I have organized has started working on the program this week. One of the first week's tasks is to list three old enemies of my creative self-worth for a "Monster Hall of Fame."

The only person who came to mind immediately was Sister Cecilia, a hateful nun who was my second grade teacher. I've blocked out many of my memories of those early days of Catholic school, but I remember that Sister Cecilia mocked me in front of the class because my penmanship was so poor. Instead of using my name, she called me "Sloppy" and succeeded in giving me an inferiority complex about my handwriting that persists to this day.

I was a quiet, introverted child when I started second grade. I became a quiet, introverted, and anxious child under Sister Cecilia's despotic tutelage. In my school picture from that year, the navy blue bow tie of my Catholic School uniform was ragged because I nervously chewed the bow tie ends to ribbons. I see that scared little seven-year-old in my head, and my heart twists with pity.

Mercifully, I've managed to forget most of the torment of those days, but one episode I'll never forget. Along with the other children in the class, I was drawing an outdoor scene. I picked up a blue crayon and carefully colored in the sky from the top of the page down to the green line which demarcated the grass.

Sister Cecilia suddenly loomed over my shoulder. "What's that?" she barked, stabbing her finger at the top of my page.

"The sky, sister," I whispered.

"That's not how you draw the sky!" She picked up Mary Catherine's paper and pointing to the narrow blue crayoned border the top. "That's how you draw the sky, up top, like that!"

If I dared, I could turn my head away from Sister Cecilia's cold gaze, look outside the window, and see that the real sky met the horizon, as I had drawn it, and was not just an overhead canopy. But Sister Cecilia told me I was wrong, that I couldn't trust my own eyes, and that I had to draw her way or not at all.

I grew up insecure, anxious, and self-doubting, and I remain so to this day. I can't lay all the responsibility at Sister Cecilia's door, but she remains a star attraction in my Monster Hall of Fame.

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