Song of the Mockingbird: My Journey with Josefina

I picture our brownstone apartment building. I know every brick and crevice. I fumble with the quill and bend my head close to the paper. How does anyone see anything like this in the firelight?

Clumsily, I draw our building, with the skyline behind it. After a few moments, I lay down the quill. It’s hard to draw with the quill. Josefina remarks that I’ve learned quickly. She ignores the many blobs and blots. It almost resembles a humpbacked mountain with a rectangle in front that tilts across the paper. Josefina tips her head and says it almost looks like their home. Those are the mountains beyond our rancho. I look closer. Whatever I drew doesn’t look like Chicago, that’s for sure. Actually, it does kind of look like the hills in Santa Fe.

Josefina says my drawing is very clever. I thank her. She’s right. The rectangle looks like our modern Santa Fe house, and the hill could be the same one outside both my house and Josefina’s. I started trying to draw one home, and ended up drawing another.