As she made her way down that street that day, the corners caved in on her, crushing her mind. She leaned against the edge of a building on the corner of the sidewalk hoping to catch a glimpse of sky through that narrow alleyway, but nothing. Just another brick wall standing strong in the distance, mocking her. And so, she looks up, gathering the pieces of the sky she can find and put together in her head to build a full one, because nothing ever feels full here.
One can say she’s always looking up, gathering shapes and colors, space and hope.
Hope.
That day was the first day she was able to confidently look from her subject to her paper and back and ignore the commotion around her. That was the day that she stood and told herself not to care, just do.
It’s an easy thing to tell yourself that, but a hard thing to listen. She has recently learned how to do that: listen to herself, and listen with pure trust.
After that walk she became far more inspired than she had been before. She felt the natural strokes within her hand scribbling rapidly on those rough, off-white pages. She felt the dryness of the ink feeling like sandpaper, but it didn’t bother her this time. She no longer searched for a moister pen, instead she embraced the lack of ink as if the claustrophobia from the surrounding city soaked it up all on its own. This made sense to her, for once. She no longer felt lost without an understanding of the reason. She felt utterly lost but knew exactly why.
The recognizable lonesome is her drive. It’s the birthplace of her powerful and constant thoughts. It’s the reason why she stares up to the sky, why she runs to the edges of the river and why she watches her feet when she walks. It’s the motivation for her blurred senses reflected in her paintings; it’s why she can’t see clearly. But it also causes her to find color, far more vibrant in her mixing on a pallet than her eye lets her see. She paints what she wishes she saw, and blurs out how she felt.
And so as her walk came to an end, she felt an immediate sense of regret. A motivation stolen away from her as she wandered back up that street. But reaching her front door she realized this was the feeling she would always feel as an artist. A feeling that would endlessly suffocate her during school. But it is the feeling that drives her work, drives her crazy, but drives her to success, because the art comes from overcoming it and using it.
