Only you can't block pain. Try and hide from your pain and it'll hurt you in a different place. You have to talk about things that hurt. This is a sucky fact of life. In Melinda's art class, everyone is assigned an object to draw, paint, sculpt, etc., for the school year.
Writing is very strange.
I chose that tree because I tried to carve a tree out of a linoleum block for several months in my ninth grade art class. That was the conscious decision. And don't let any English teacher tell you I did it on purpose. My grandfather was a forest ranger, and my dad took me hiking in the Adirondack Mountains a lot when I was a kid. Trees are awesome.