My childhood consisted of legos and sports. I didn't watch T.V. nor did I learn to read until I was almost in fourth grade, and the list of stories my parents read to me could be written down on a small note card and counted on the fingers of a single hand. The only stories I remember actually being told were Grimm's fairy tales... and Harold and the Purple Crayon. I remember Grimm's fairy tales as being outstanding in their entertainment value, but I remember being profoundly effected by Harold, and his crayon.

I used to have Harold and the Purple Crayon read to me every night before bed for the better part of two years. I loved it. I used to picture myself as Harold with his onesie pajamas and all. His absence of hair gave him a feeling of eternal youth, and possibly took away from some of his character's individual person, maybe to give us as readers the feel that everyone was Harold, if they had a purple crayon and an imagination. Harold was able to bring life to any of his imagination's wanderings by drawing them with the crayon. The crayon was like a wand, fulfilling boundless possibilities. The crayon allowed Harold to give shape to ideas and wonder as if they were as real as anything else.

This story gave me the feeling that there was no place for 'should's' or 'should nots', it made the world seem boundless, as if it were a true oyster for anything I should wish to bring into existence. I would run around the apartment my family used to rent with my one piece pajamas on, feeling like the onesie was impenetrable – it fully engulfed the feet along with anything else – giving me that feeling one has when wearing a snow suit and jumping into piles of snow without getting cold or wet. One day I decided to take all my own crayons and bring my own thoughts into colored wax embodiments (of course it was more like bringing them to life for me) and covered the walls in my room with landscape and buildings that I was hoping my lego troops could find refuge in. When my father came home he gave me a look I didn't recognize and I tried explaining that my world had more than just purple: “Look!” But it was only moments later when my mother's reaction told me crayon drawings were not the live medium of my imagination, but rather markings on a wall, and a wall that wasn't mine nor theirs. I didn't understand the problem. I would go on to build a resistance to this lesson, feeling as if the manifestation of the creative self should not be bound by what people refer to as reality. I have always felt that reality is what you make it.