A note about this transcript: The Moth is true stories told live. We provide transcripts to make all of our stories
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the full breadth of the story.
I was six years old in the first grade, and I was sitting at a table with my three best friends. We
were all really similar. All of our moms bought us clothes from the Children’s Place, we all liked to play
house during recess, and all our names started with the letter A. It was Ashaya, Alicia, and Aleeza.
We were working on a first-grade icebreaker project, which our teacher, Miss Pennington, had
assigned to us. It was gonna be self-portraits that we could hang up on the wall and get to know each
other’s faces and names. I was really excited for this project. I knew it was really special because there
were three drafts. And we were working on the final draft, which was going to be colored in.
I was super stoked for this. Over the summer my mom had bought me this coloring book that
taught me all these great techniques for how to draw properly, and I finally mastered coloring inside the
lines. I was so excited to show my friends my new skills. I was basically young Picasso.
I also knew this was a special project because we were using oil pastels. I loved oil pastels—
they’re really soft, so I would pinch off a little bit and melt it between my fingers. They were expensive
for my public school in New York City, and so each table got one box. And each box had one of each
color, so you had to be patient and wait for your color.
At this point I had colored in my shirt blue and the background green, and there was a little tree.
I had drawn in all the features of my face, which the book had taught me to do first. I had drawn in my
lips and my nose, and I was ready to color in my face.
All my friends had used the peach oil pastel to color in their faces, and since we were basically
all the same girl, I would use peach, too. So finally, when it was available, I picked it up, and I started
drawing so slowly, going around my lips and my eyes and coloring in all one direction. I was watching as
the oil pastel melted into the paper and my face came alive, and I colored inside the lines.
When I looked down, it was like I was looking into a mirror. This girl I had just drawn was exactly
how I saw myself. I felt my teacher, Miss Pennington, over my shoulder.
Miss Pennington loved it when people drew well, and so I was getting ready for her to praise
me, to say, Aleeza, that is the most beautiful self-portrait I have ever seen. I’m gonna hang it above my
desk so everyone who comes in can see it.
Instead Miss Pennington says, “Aleeza, that’s not your color.”
I’m confused by this, because I don’t understand how colors can belong to people.
But before I can find a way to ask her, she’s gone to the oil-pastel box and started looking for it.
She doesn’t find the color that she’s looking for, and so she goes to the crayon bin.
Now, every school had this infamous crayon bin that had bits and pieces of gross crayons that
had been rolling around in that bin forever, and I never went to the crayon bin. Nonetheless, Miss
Pennington is rummaging through it, and she reaches in, and she pulls out this little nub of a brown
crayon that’s unwrapped and gross.
And she hands it to me.
I’m still really confused by all this, but I notice my friends are staring at me, and my heart is
beating really fast, and I want this to be over. So I just grab the crayon, and I start coloring in my face,
and I’m going in all different directions. But wax crayon and oil pastel don’t mix together. They don’t