The Watercolour Painting Class
A jumble of mismatched colours
smothered the 40 by 40 canvas.
The effort was there,
but the strokes of the paintbrush felt patchy and wavering;
meanwhile,
the focal point was conflicting,
and the technique was
at best
mediocre.
Such a cycle continued with each passing minute
and the final product was,
with no surprise,
not a masterpiece.
The watercolour painting class ended.
Her classmates painted dragons, dandelions, dancers,
entities of worth,
but she painted lousy stick men.
Ashamed,
she clutched the canvas and turned it upside down,
buried it in the soil of her drawer,
and left to continue her daily regimens.
~
Five years had passed.
The paintings had become a Jenga tower,
untouched and now
too dusty to observe with clarity.
Today,
however,
she was gifted a sleek notebook from her aunt
and, out of impulse,
began to write.
Unlike her paintings,
each written word beckoned an air of solace.
The words multiplied on the page exponentially,
forming sentences that were a bundle of fireflies,
awakening and incandescent –
byproducts of what were
initially
convoluted scribbles in her mind.
Frontiers transcended,
her inner questions, beliefs, explorations had finally found their pathway to documentation.
In this literary playground,
therefore,
she felt free.
From then on,
times of turmoil were
almost always resolved
within the sanctuary of her notebook.
She gained a sense of control over the uncontrollable,
used her words to find peace among conflict,
and grew alongside the growing length of her pieces.
~
Another five years had passed.
This time,
she opened that same drawer,
brushed off the dust,
and giggled at her childhood compositions.
Although she hadn’t flourished into a traditional artist,
she was still an artist at heart.
But,
instead of paintbrush and paint,
her tools became pen and paper.
