Carol Enjo paused outside her daughter's bedroom door and smiled as she watched Dawn sort through her toys, her small face serious and intent. The child's 5 year old hands sifted through the wooden toy box with dexterity unusual for someone so young.

Dawn pulled a yarn-haired doll with flat-button eyes from under a pile of books and cocked her head to consider it critically. With a dismissive shrug, she tossed it into the "not-taking" pile. It landed on a stack of finger paintings with a rustling thump.

"Sweetheart? You're not keeping your paintings?" Carol put down the empty moving boxes she was carrying and came over to pull the crumpled artwork from Dawn's reject pile. "But this one of you with the tulips is so pretty." She admired it a moment. "Who's the other child in it? One of your friends?"

Dawn glanced at the picture. "I dunno. It just needed two people." She went back to her task. "Don't worry, Mommy. I'll make more pictures when we get to Milwrow". Thunk. A bendable Gumby toy came down on top of the yarned doll head.

"Milborough." Carol corrected softly as she gazed at the colourful artwork. "You know, these don't take up much room. I'm sure we can find a space for them in a box somewhere."

Dawn shrugged.

"Dawn, honey. You've been pretty excited about our move so far. Are you sad to say good-bye to this home and your toys?"

Dawn turned from the toy box and looked up, her expression concerned. "Are you sad, Mommy?"

Carol chose her words carefully. So far, Dawn had seemed surprisingly content with moving from Kingston to the Toronto area, unlike her brother Brian, who was upset at leaving his friends. "Well, it's never easy to say good-bye to the places and people you are used to. But I think it will be fun to discover all the great new things there will be to enjoy at the new house."

Apparently satisfied that her Mom was not sad and in need of comforting, Dawn turned cheerily back to the toy pile. "Me too! My new room is going to be yellow, and there is a slide and swings in the park just down the street! Dad said he would put a sandbox in the yard, and..." she paused to look seriously into her mother's face and lowered her voice to a whisper. "Mom, don't tell Brian, but I think my room is bigger than his!" She covered her little mouth and giggled.

Carol laughed a little too, mostly at herself for having mistaken Dawn's focus for melancholy. She stood for another minute to watch as her daughter's attention shifted back to her sorting.

Dawn was an interesting child, and Carol thought privately, an impressive one. Although quiet by nature, the little girl was emotionally strong, rarely shy and so independent. Carol had been sure that moving the family from the only home the kids had known would sooner or later cause some fear or sadness in her daughter. Even when her father had asked her to go through her things and pick out just the toys that she really wanted to take, Dawn's only concern had been for the toys not chosen. She had crossed her little arms, looked him straight in the eye and said that she would NOT leave them behind if they would be alone and sad.

But that was typical of Dawn. Other than in occasional disputes with her brother, Brian, she was amazingly unselfish.



With the finger paintings in hand, Carol picked up the empty boxes again, ready to go back to her own packing in the kitchen. On a thought, she turned back to her daughter.

"You can go with Dad to the Salvation Army tomorrow to drop off your toys and clothes if you like. Then you can see where they will be put for other children to find."

"Ok, Mom. That would be nice." Three books and a box of crayons dropped into the "keep" pile.

Fourteen years later, Dawn found herself once again going through her room, sifting her belongings and packing the high priority items. The room was still yellow, but remnants of 5-year-old Dawn were few. CDs replaced dolls and sketch pads replaced colouring books. Dawn's own drawings littered the walls in between posters of her favourite celebrities and films. The toy box had long since been turned on its side and, with the addition of a few shelves, transformed into a cabinet for art supplies. There was no need to consider its contents this time. Her art supplies were the first items to be packed, ready to go to her new apartment in Toronto an easy bus ride from York University's Keele campus. A giant pile of clothes heaped on her bed now held her attention. She yanked a pair of stretchy red corduroy pants from the bottom of the pile and laughed.

"What's so funny?" Dawn's dad, Keith, stood at the door to her bedroom. "I just came back to see what else was ready to be loaded in the car."

"Check these out, Dad! Can you believe I wore these?"

"Sure can. In fact, I remember when you first got them. You paraded around in them for hours with the tags still attached. 'High fashion' you informed me."

"Man, I can't believe I still have them. That must have been 5 years ago. Guess I should have cleaned out my closet awhile ago."

Keith raised an eyebrow. He could have written a book on how many times he and Carol got after Dawn to clean her room. It was bittersweet knowing those battles were over. Dawn tossed the pants into her 'donate' pile and sat down on the corner of the bed.

"Nothing else is ready to go yet. I'm still trying to figure out what I'll need for the first semester of this design program."

"Well, if you forget anything, we're only an hour away. I'm sure we'll still see you back here quite a bit." Keith meandered over to the gutted closet. It hadn't been this empty since 1985 when they bought the place.

"Ya, I guess I could leave a few things here." For the first time, Dawn considered the thought of still being attached to her parents' home after leaving for university. It seemed a little odd. Her decision to attend York had been made deliberately and decisively. She was ready to take the next step into adulthood head-on and not look back. Meeting new people and experiencing new things had never intimidated her. In fact, the last year of high school had seemed to drag on forever, as she found herself craving new experiences and eager to see what waited around the next corner.



She vaguely remembered meeting all new friends in what seemed like a hundred years ago when she moved to Milborough, but didn't recall having any shyness or reservations about it even then. Nor had there been any reason to be uneasy. Lizzie Patterson had been the first person she met, and that friendship had come easily. It turned into one of the best she had experienced so far.



In high school, she had started to notice how different the people around her were. She was intrigued by it. Her friend Candace had fascinated her, mainly because she never knew what Candace would do. The way the other girl dressed, her attitude, her social skills were not at all what Dawn was used to.



It was somehow exciting, even when Candace occasionally went too far.



Shawna-Marie had come into her life in junior high school, and Dawn embraced her readily as a new best friend.



The other girl had introduced her to yoga and meditation and was the first good friend who had tattoos and facial piercings. The two of them had spent hours together talking about life and all the strange and wonderful things in it.



At university, there would be thousands more interesting strangers around her, and some of them would become good friends, too. Dawn could hardly wait.

Of course, she would visit with her parents as often as she could, and she looked forward to coming back for holidays. Still, as far as she was concerned, the move out was permanent. If Brian had not gone to Japan for school, she may have applied overseas herself, but the thought of splitting the family up that much did not sit right. She missed Brian when he was away and she knew her parents did too. If she also went abroad, there might never be a time when the four of them would be together.

Besides, she had never needed distance before to experience new things, why should this be any different? The York/Sheridan Design Program was supposed to be fantastic and it was right in her backyard.

"This looks pretty old, are you taking it with you?" Keith's question shook Dawn from her train of thought. He was holding up a sheet of brightly marked paper he had pulled down from the top shelf of the closet.

"You know, I don't even remember when I did that." Dawn studied the picture. "Finger paints; it must be from preschool. I probably shouldn't throw it out, but I don't know if I'll take it with me." Her own indecisiveness surprised her. She wasn't usually this undecided about old things.

"That's okay." Her dad smiled at the colourful artwork. "We'll hang on to it here until you decide. I suspect your mom would never forgive us if we threw this out." He left Dawn to the heap of clothing she had started to pick through again, and wandered off to find Carol and show her the painting.

The years flew by and Dawn's experience at York University did not fall short of her expectations. The work was challenging and inspiring. She regularly lost herself in her courses and never wanted to find her way out. Art was such a vehicle for both creative and practical thought and she loved how all the people she learned from pushed her to think differently about things she had taken for granted before. She had no classes she did not like as they all opened up new ways of thinking about the world around her.

It was this diversity that led her to attend a lecture in her third year on Sir John Hill, the 18th century botanist. Hill's art, so detailed and fine, had been a vehicle for educating England about a new way of classifying plants and, in simple terms, worked as advertisement. Dawn thought this was pretty impressive; to so successfully combine science, art and business.

The seminar was at noon on a Friday at the University of Toronto's St. George campus. Dawn had never been there before. She got off the subway and followed the directions scribbled into her sketchbook toward the Environmental Sciences Centre. As she drifted among the University buildings looking for some sign that she was in the right place, a mob of students in lab coats breezed by, their conversation sprinkled with unfamiliar and nerdy-sounding vocabulary. She was definitely in a science section of some kind!

"You look lost. Do you need some help finding something?" A strikingly handsome man smiled down at her, rattling her a little. She had almost walked into him while she searched the nearby buildings for numbers or names.

Not anymore! Dawn's spontaneous thought caused her to redden with embarrassment even though she hadn't said anything out loud. "Um, yes, actually, I do. Uh, thanks. I'm looking for this." Flustered, she shoved her sketchbook at the dark, smiling eyes.

"A naked man?" His eyebrows lifted, and the generous mouth quirked. "Well, I can point you towards the Athletic Centre. The guy's locker room usually has a few of those."

"What?" Dawn yanked the book back. Mortified, she realized she had scribbled the directions onto the margins of a sketch of a nude model from her Life Studies class. With an effort, she dragged her composure together. "Oh, no! I'm so sorry! It's room 142 in the Environmental Sciences Centre, I'm looking for."

"You're going to the Sir John Hill lecture? Me too. You're almost there." He pointed to a modern-looking (by university standards) brick building right behind her. "C'mon, I'll walk with you."

"Thanks." Dawn avoided eye contact, horrified that she had not only written the directions on the same page as her nude model sketches, but had shoved it into the face of a perfect stranger. A stranger with whom she would now spend the next hour in the same room.

There was an awkward silence. She felt shy, and a little intimidated. It was something she wasn't used to when meeting new people.

"I'm David, by the way." He smiled down at her. "Just last month I gave a tutorial to 35 first-year students first thing on a Monday morning. When I pulled my notes out of my book bag, a dirty magazine and a pair of pink fuzzy hand-cuffs fell out. We had a bachelor party for a buddy on the Friday before and I went straight to the party from my Friday afternoon lab. I completely forgot that I had stuffed them in my bag."

Dawn stopped dead in her tracks, staring wide-eyed at David. He stopped too and turned to her, his dark eyes twinkling. "They were a prize. I won them in a game for being able to name the most female body parts normally covered by clothing. Turns out I do remember something from first-year biology after all!" The lines around David's mouth deepened as his smile widened. He was enjoying her reaction.

Dawn exploded into laughter and doubled over, dropping her sketchbook.

"Ya, that's about how the students in my tutorial reacted too." He reached down and picked up the book. "Your naked dude picture doesn't seem so bad now, does it?"

Dawn wiped the tears from her eyes, took a few deep breaths and snickered as she replied, "I guess not!"

David had not just broken the ice, but shattered it. He sat with her in the seminar room and they talked and laughed until the speaker began. After the lecture was over, they went for "a quick coffee" that somehow lasted all afternoon.

David, originally from Ottawa, was at the University of Toronto working on his Masters in botany. He was particularly interested in the identification and classification of plants. It surprised Dawn how easy it was for them to talk about science and art together. The natural world is very diverse and creative in its own right. She decided dreamily that she could listen to David discuss the evolution of plant-life for hours.

As they finally left the coffee shop, David looked down at her with an expression that left her shy and flustered all over again. "Can I see you again? You really are adorable!"

They dated for two years, graduating from their respective programs the same spring. David was offered a position with the Canadian Museum of Nature back in Ottawa, close to his family. Dawn happily welcomed the chance to live in another city. With excellent marks and strong recommendations from her instructors, she easily found work with a website design company. Three years later, Dawn was promoted to Head of Design. David took her out to dinner to celebrate. It was May and the city was abuzz with the Tulip Festival. They decided to go for a walk through Commissioners Park before dinner to admire the flowers and check out the local artists who came out to take advantage of the colourful waves of blooms. One young female artist seemed to be watching them closely as they meandered along the path. As they approached, she backed away from her easel and moved to the side, as if to see her canvas from a better angle.

Curious, Dawn paused to look at the woman's work.

"David, look at this one!" she whispered. "It's not a picture of flowers. It's - . What is she..." Dawn stuttered to a stop, stunned into silence by astonishment. The painting was a picture of her! In it, she was holding a large bouquet of tulips and wearing a wedding dress! "David!" She spun to look at him.

He was down on his knee, opening a velvet ring box, his expression alive with mischief and love. Dawn couldn't help but squeal. Other passer-bys stopped to watch. The artist watched too, beaming from ear to ear.

David's eyes were smiling and his voice warm, "Dawn, will..."

"AAAAAAA!" She shrieked before he had a chance to finish. "Of course." In a whirlwind of emotion, she fell to her knees and hugged him so hard they tottered, off-balance and laughing. Led by the artist, the gathering crowd around them applauded and whistled in good-natured appreciation.

Dawn and David were married two years later, a small, simple morning wedding held in the midst of riotous beds of spring tulips. Afterward, they held an elegantly catered picnic lunch in the park. When it was over, Dawn's mother presented them with a large flat package wrapped in silver paper.

"I've heard it said that a child's destiny can be guessed from the things he or she loves best when small. There's a lot of truth in that, I think. " Carol Enjo's smile was teasing and misty all at once. "Don't you?"

Dawn opened the package. Looking over her shoulder, David whistled softly, then chuckled. "Looks to me like it's true."

Sunlight winked off the glass of the framed artwork Dawn held; a colourful finger painting of a girl and a boy standing hand-in-hand in a field of tulips, masterfully crafted by her 5-year old self.