This morning, I stepped out into the light, breathable air and fished around my purse for my sunglasses and the early morning sun was peaking through the buildings on I Street.

<deep breath>

<sigh>

What a gorgeous morning!

I was born and raised under that Austin-esque philosophy that well bred little girls wore dresses, matching ribbons in their hair, and patented leather Mary Jane shoes with matching hats on Sunday. They didn’t get their hands dirty or climb trees or play in the mud. They said ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘no ma’am’ and ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and understood the value of being seen and not heard. Yes, I had rebellious childhood phases, and jumped on my horse bareback one day when I was ten (I was promptly thrown off, broke my arm and was lucky I wasn’t trampled). And that was the end of that.

By the time I reached the 8^th grade, the mantra was the well bred young ladies were ‘accomplished.’ Meaning – they were not only learning their geography, geometry, American history, etc.; but they were well rounded. They played at least one instrument (the piano for me), took voice lessons, learned to sketch, paint, sing and dance (ballet, tap, jazz AND ballroom – good god I was a busy kid!)

So my parents chose a school for me that embraced this way of thinking - the convent school I transferred into mid-7^th grade (notre-dame prep). And it was on mornings such as these when 15 giggling girls, in their plaid skirts and training bras, would run from morning prayer, out into the crisp spring air and down the sidewalk to the Art Annex – a greenhouse-type, glass enclosed, studio-style structure and we would take our seats at one of the artist/architecture tables arranged in a rectangle shape around the room and begin to work on our semester projects. Whether we were sketching our hands, arranging still-life subjects to paint or practicing watercolor technique, there was always some kind of artistic movement to be expressed or inspiration to be had.

However, it was on mornings such as this that we would go out onto the grounds of the once mansion - turned convent - turned school. We would grab our sketch pads, our charcoal and grey gum artist erasers and sketch out one of the wistful statues contained within the 10-foot iron fence surrounding our campus. We then focused on the negative space in the folds of marble and chatted/gossiped about all those things near and dear to an eighth grader’s heart. What those topics were I’m sure I don’t recall. An impending Latin or science exam? The Spice Girls? Heck if I know!

It was very serene though and lovely to be out doors after a winter cooped up inside with the nuns. However, sitting there in the early morning we never managed to get very far on our sketches. Distracted by our polyester plaid skirts as they became damp despite our efforts to find a patch of grass where the dew was already warmed and dried by the morning sun or the slight breeze compelling us to pull our navy blue cardigans closer around our bodies. Nevertheless, we attempted to fully capture the way in which the sun illuminated the marble, the far off look of a woman suspended forever in stone, or the folds of an angle’s robe as the sun moved an hour’s worth of distance from the eastern horizon.