My kindergarden teacher gave us an assignment:

Go outside to the playground and pick up one thing from nature that you think is beautiful.

My classmates began scurrying around in a race to find the most beautiful things before anyone else could get their hands on them.

I lingered next to the door, wondering how I could ever just pick one thing when I saw so much beauty. I watched as the kids picked up leaves, rocks, twigs, and blades of grass. I didn't want anything anyone else had, of that I was sure. I saw no beauty in anything that was repeated and unoriginal, even then. What I really wanted to do was walk over to my favorite piece of playground equipment, that ancient jungle gym in the shape of an old car, uproot it and carry it inside.

I just stood there watching. After the allotted amount of time passed, my teacher approached me with that all too familiar look of perplexity on her face.

"Trinitie, you're going to have to find something soon; we're going inside."

So I walked directly ahead, fighting tears that have cursed my entire life. I cry when I feel that I'm not understood, or when I don't understand.

Through cloudy eyes I spotted my object of desire. Leaning down, I picked up a flattened chocolate milk carton with the lettering faded to smudges and with dust etched into the folded parts.

I returned to my teacher's side and held out my treasure.

"Trinitie, the assignment was to find something from nature."

"I know," I honestly replied, still offering my piece of wonder in one hand. The way I figure, milk cartons were made from paper and paper was made from trees, so this was just as much a part of nature as anything else.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" There's that puzzled look again.

"I am."

After attending numerous schools, I returned to that school in the fourth grade. I went to visit my old teacher. In a frame, there was the title "1991 Kindergarden Class" with 5 rows of preserved "nature" items. They were placed in rows by similarities: one row of twigs, one of rocks, one of leaves, etc.. The fifth row had only one item. "Trinitie" was written beneath it, and pride swallowed me whole.

That teacher was wise for not making me pick a different item. She saw in my teary but triumphant eyes that I was not joking that day in kindergarden.

A man supported his family by cutting down that tree. A woman chatted with her friends at the factory where the carton was manufactured. A farmer raised cows and provided milk, while another man supplied the chocolate. A child drank from that milk carton and received nourishment. It was the connection between countless people who might never cross paths, but affected each other regardless. Then, it was discarded...forgotten.

I had resurrected it in all it's splendor. There it was on the wall, displayed in a frame for all to see.

No one else had done that.

Trinitie