Trying Again

We walked down the aisle and he said "go ahead, get what you need" and suddenly I almost smelt the Florida wind. My fingers ran along the stacks and I instantly started desperately trying to remember the math – the poundage, the pressing. I felt almost dizzy, trying at to once to get the best bang for his buck while still getting the quality I was hoping for.

Slowly, meticulously, I remembered the last time I had bought nice, clean, good tools. Could it truly have been that long? 5 years? More? My favorite brushes are a mess, well worn where my fingers grip them. I stood there, as he wandered patiently nearby and tested the ends, carefully spreading them apart with the tip of my finger - examining how they bounced back. Testing their weight, feeling their measure.

We walked up to the counter and I piled my supplies in front of the salesman; I wanted him to recognize this moment. See? I'm coming back! I'll do it again, now with a new perspective than before. Now with different thoughts, different hopes, different dreams. I'm not the child I was before. But I am still the artist. Do you see? I wanted him to somehow confirm my choices. Validate me. Validate my hopes.

We came home and I sat the bag down in the bedroom, to the side, where I couldn’t see it. The excitement from the store was gone; the intimidation of the blank page was creeping in. I've spent the last week dreaming of paintings. Of portraits filled with Dark Age mythology, the grace of a goldfish, the fire of a dragon. The simplicity and warm familiarity of my own smile. I'm hoping to overcome the fear; the nagging voice that says it's gone. That talent, that ease, that home.

That's what it is. The fear of coming home, decades gone - afraid your old stomping ground is skyscrapers where there was once grass and green and wind. The fear of walls where there were once horizons. I want to open my wings and have them catch air, soar with ease and expertise. Instead I find myself scared, petrified. Terrified that I shall only discover my wings clipped, my feet anchored.