“I’m done”, she declared, almost unenthused. Five minutes earlier, I had handed her a canvas and acrylic paints. After a brief pause, she created this painting with bold strokes filled with a clarity of purpose.
“What did you paint?” I asked.
She looked at me like I was an idiot for asking such a dumb question. “It’s a beach at sunset. Can’t you see?”
In contrast, it takes me forever to write something. An elaborate internal editor’s dialog ensues – is this worth writing about? what would I say that others haven’t? will I be able to articulate what I am thinking? will anyone read it? if they do, will they think lesser of me?
15 years ago, I had a blog and I wrote consistently. Now, my internal thoughts paralyze me, preventing me from even starting. I blamed it on “writer’s block” and my 5-year old showed me that that’s bullshit. There is no such thing as writer’s block, it’s just fear of judgement.
She made me wonder: what if I didn’t care what others thought? What if I wrote like she painted?
As she started to walk away, I asked her to sign her painting. “People should know who the artist is”, I explained. She turned the canvas upside down before scrawling her name across the bottom.
ani.space 