The girl who loved the leaves

When I was a little girl, I used to love collecting colorful leaves of all different shapes throughout the year and then pressing them in my big fat thesaurus, my great big Webster dictionary, and all of our encyclopedias! Remember those?

Then many months, and sometimes even years later, when I would go back into those books for something, beautiful colorful flat leaves would tumble out and it would just make me feel so happy and delighted — as if I had been visited by an old friend.

Many years later, I still did the same thing on my college campus. I collected leaves on my way to and from classes and pressed them in an actual flower press I bought at Frank’s Nursery and Crafts store. Remember that place?

A few years ago I was talking to an old boyfriend of mine from college who told me that one thing he always had remembered about me over all these years was that I was “the girl who loved the leaves.”

Leaves are very beautiful things in our lives. They bring us oxygen, color, sound, interest, shade, and also habitat for birds and animals and insects. I think they are an excellent subject matter for artists.

This piece is now sold.