WHAT WE CARRY
Here’s an old belief of mine: I am not creative, I’m no good at art. In elementary school, it was a given that I was not artistic. I was once told by a teacher I couldn’t draw but that was okay, because I was so good at all the other subjects, math, history, geography, literature, and what did it matter that I couldn’t draw? So I believed art was less important. But I no longer believe that and now art is vitally important to my life. I began painting during Covid, yes, me, who couldn’t draw a straight line. But I discovered that one does not need to be good at drawing to be able to paint. These are two different things. Drawing is the ability to sketch realistically, beautifully, precisely, rendering something that not only resembles but enhances what the eye sees. And painting? That’s being able to express what the eye may not see, but the soul feels. And so I paint. In school, learning to recite poetry by heart seemed tedious. Why did we need to memorize “Water, water, everywhere...
