Renaissance

I apologize for all the angry ranting lately... it's been a rough couple of weeks. Since my house was burglarized on Tuesday, I haven't been able to sleep in my own bed because it creeps me out to think of some stranger rifling through my bedroom. Instead, I've slept on the couch, which isn't nearly as comfortable or satisfying, so I'm a tad cranky.

Went to pawn shops yesterday with the miniscule hope that I'd be able to track down my lost jewelry, but no such luck. I started to head home, incredibly depressed and despondant, but when I neared home, I changed course and found myself driving to the art supply store. Some pastels, a sketch board, paper, charcoal and other supplies found their way into my basket.

So late last night, when I was feeling the despair, I picked up the sketch board and got started. My past preferred medium was pencil, but lately I've been willing to branch out and try something new.

The preoccupation with something else, something productive yet also solely for me, comforts me. For several hours I sketched, blended, tried, erased, made mistakes and fixed them, and not once during that time did my mind wander to all my recent losses. The sense of a catharsis is with me even as I type this.

I realize now how much I missed sketching. In the past, I turned to drawing to calm my troubled mind, to give it a single purpose at which all my energy and attention would be focused. But the fear of screwing up, of wasting my effort drawing something worthy of only the trash heap, kept me from picking up a pencil again. I've been so concerned with the end product rather than the process that I haven't sketched for nearly 7 years. And instead of facing my fears, I missed out on 7 years of improvement in my drawing skills. While worrying about wasting my time drawing, I wasted my time by not drawing.

But that stops right now.