Model Behavior

I was thirteen, when I modeled for Tia Claussen.  Tia, to rhyme with Compassion; she was an artist, photographer and older sister to the Whiting brothers in the old neighborhood.  She lived on Mystic street in a room in her mother's house, in a room over the garage where she painted, took photographs and otherwise lived while going to artist's college. She was mellow, had Hippie Wisdom and listened to Rod Stewart from his Trans-Atlantic Crossing, an import one can barely find nowadays.  Magie May was her favorite song and since then has been my favorite song as well. At first, and when I wasn't looking, she took pictures of me while I was hanging out with her brothers.  Later I'd see them, matted and showing qualities of myself I had never noticed before.
I was drawn to her compassion, her consideration, her ability to let me know, for the very first time in my awareness, that I mattered, that I was important. Tia asked me one day if I would model for her. 'Will you model for a pastel for me?'  to rhyme with: you're a beautiful person whom people want know. She told me I should hold something in my hands to describe myself. I brought my lacrosse stick and there, in the basement where she sketched, I sat for hours feeling important, feeling cared about as she recorded who I was in her own eyes.
Each day we'd resume I'd find the exact position I had held the day before. She'd look to me with happy surprise and say 'Wow, that's exactly right!' to rhyme with: you're special for who you are. It was the first moment I knew; I was worth believing in. Thank you Tia. Thank you for my future.