For my 7th grade science fair, Dad suggested I bring his oscilloscope.

For my 7th grade science fair, Dad suggested I bring his oscilloscope.

He was an amateur electronics tinkerer, fixing tube TVs with that strange glowing machine. To him, it was familiar. To me, it felt like something from a sci-fi lab.

I brought it in, tried to explain waveforms and signals. I didn’t really know what I was talking about. I parroted bits of what Dad had said, mixed with things I half-understood from books.

Part of me felt proud — I had a “cool” project with blinking lights. Part of me felt like a fraud.

That feeling — standing in front of people, talking about something I don’t fully grasp, hoping they don’t notice the gaps — is one I would meet again and again in adulthood.

Now I can name it: imposter syndrome. Back then, it was just a queasy sense of being a kid in a room full of expectations.

Still, that oscilloscope mattered: It put a tool in my hands that said, The hidden patterns of the world can be seen, if you know how to look.

I think that’s art, too.