This morning as Leta was brushing her teeth before school she glanced up and noticed the artwork above the toilet for the first time. Here’s where I talk about how sad it is that she hasn’t noticed it before, not until she got glasses, and what else has she missed in the last six years? Except when she’s older and drunk at college and everyone is talking about how much their parents suck, at least she can go, “Oh yeah? Really? Because when I got glasses at the age of six, I walked out of the doctor’s office, pointed at a tree, and was all, so THAT’s what one looks like?”
That didn’t really happen. To Leta. It happened to one of our friends from college. Except we weren’t drunk when he told the story. We were crying.
Anyway, she points at the pictures, and she says, “Astronauts! We learned about those at school!” And then she squints, sets down her toothbrush and continues, “But the moon isn’t red! Where are they? Mars?”
“The artist called these Terranauts,” I explain. “Terra means Earth. So I’m guessing they are here on earth in the desert somewhere.”
She blinks several times in an attempt to piece all of this together, scrunches up her nose and says, “That is really weird.”
“True,” I agree. “But art can be weird sometimes.”
“But I want to be an artist when I grow up! I don’t want to be weird!”
“Leta, your father and I consider ourselves artists.”
“But you and dad ARE weird.”