Page 14 - TheMoralOfYourStory

14 CHILDART THE MORAL OF YOUR STORY APR-JUN 2021 15

Like many of my generation, social unrest and an enlarged
KINDNESS MAKES THE awareness of cultural inequality entered my consciousness
in college. Eventually this led to an estrangement from
my family and a move to California to start my life over.
DIFFERENCE I was going to be an artist!
I arrived in California with $300, no credit cards, a
typewriter and a few art supplies. I had planned to stay
with a friend and take it from there. The friend and her
partner had a small place and a tumultuous relationship.

AMY IONE Tackling It was immediately clear I needed to leave. Questions
relating to what I would do and who I would become
the task of were quickly interwoven with morality because I needed
DIRECTOR to make many decisions. Suffice it to say, I met all types
of people and I was exposed to a diversity of lifestyles
THE DIATROPE INSTITUTE constructing and possibilities in a strange world. I worried about
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA homelessness, the abundance of drugs, and how I would
my life didn’t support myself. I also remembered a poem by Edgar
Guest that I learned as a child:
take a day, or Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,
But he with a chuckle replied
even a week, but That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
As a young child I didn’t really have a sense Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
of right and wrong, but because I was quiet, many people Tackling the task of constructing my life didn’t take a day,
shy, and studious, I rarely got into trouble. My or even a week, but many people helped me over many
parents were busy and aside from going out years. Most of them did it without realizing how much of
to dinner quite a bit, we didn’t do much as a helped me over a difference their kind gestures made as I tried to craft
family. As a result, my guidance in good and bad a path forward. Indeed, it was hard not to notice that
behavior came from school and summer camp. many years. people I met were willing to provide thoughtful support

Beginning at age four, I went to overnight to a stranger for no logical reason. Their generous and
camp for eight weeks every summer. Now Most of them unselfish responses in all kinds of circumstances allowed
that I am an adult, I’m not sure if I am more me to realize that empathy, honesty, and community exist
astonished by the fact that my parents did it without in society.
decided to send me away for eight weeks One incident encapsulates the humanity of others who
or by the fact that the camp was willing to supported me. Shortly after I moved to a room in an
accept a child so young. I was the youngest realizing how architect’s house, I accidentally spilled permanent black
camper and my older sister, at six, was the India ink on a redwood bench in a room the architect was
second youngest. At camp there were lots of much of a renovating. I was so devastated I couldn’t bring myself
rules. This translated into learning that some to tell him about the large black spot on the now ruined
things are right and others are wrong, but bench. After a few weeks, when it finally came to his
I didn’t understand what a moral compass difference their attention, he responded by saying that he had made
is or why our decisions make a difference. many mistakes while building the room. Mistakes happen.
School acclimated me to cultural mores kind gestures Things change. That’s the way life is.
but, again, being so quiet and studious, I Throughout my life, acts of kindness like the architect’s
didn’t have an integral sense of how good made as I tried seeded my path. The thoughtfulness people expressed
and bad behavior differed. Although I was a from moment to moment helped me in navigating the
“good” child, my small world didn’t include a to craft a path confusion, contradictions, and complications in my
sense of empathy or how my behavior was world. For me, morality encompasses doing the right
connected to others. My sense that I alone thing as well as knowing that how we treat mistakes
controlled my life and destiny was reinforced forward. makes a difference. It also includes trying, even if the
by my father. He often told me that it is a path isn’t clear. After all these years, the Guest poem
dog-eat-dog world. As I developed my own still comes to mind when faced with something that
moral compass, I realized that some people seems impossible. Of course, my lifelong passion for
give you bad advice and that part of having art and creativity played an important role in this period
a moral compass includes evaluating what when I was creating something we each must craft for
others tell you. ourselves—a foundation for life.

ARTWORK SOLOMIYA BOLYUKH AGE 12 USA https://icaf.org