I love to watch my father paint.

Really, I love to hear him talk while he paint it.

I learnt a lot about my dad that way.

He told me all sorts of things like

how he got his first job delivering hay and

how he wished he'd finished college.

Then one day he surprised me.

Father: What's going on with you and uh, Bryce Loski?

Me: Wh-what do you mean? Nothing.

Father: Aw, okay. My mistake.

Me: Why would you even think that?

Father: No reason. Just that you..talk about him all the time.

Me: I do?

Father: Um-hmm.

Me: I don't know. I guess it's something about his eyes, or maybe his smile.

Father: What about him?

Me: What?

Father: You have to look at the whole landscape.

Me: What does that mean?

Father: The painting is more than the sum of its parts. The cow by itself is just a cow. The meadow by itself is just grass, flowers. And the sun peeking through the tree is just a beam of light. When you put them all together, then it can be..magic.

I didn't really understand what he was saying, until one afternoon while I was up on a sycamore tree. I was rescuing a kite. It was a long way up, higher than I've ever been. And the higher I got, the more amazed I was by the view. I began to notice how wonderful the Grace smell, like sunshine and wild grass. I couldn't stop breathing it in. Filling my lungs with the sweetest smell I've ever known.

Bryce: Hey, you found my kite!

Me: Bryce, you should come up here. So beautiful.

Bryce: I, I can't. I strained my, um...I have a rash.

From that moment on, that became my spot.

-As quoted from the movie "Flipped"-