Practice

I have watched my art improve even though I didn't think it was a practice. As I met that page with my watercolors each day things started to look better. They even started to feel better.

The lines were crisper and the ideas more available. For the longest time when it came to my art, I thought I either had it or I didn’t. That my ability for art was something that I had been given that came with a threshold already met.

I didn't know I could create art that made me feel free or that the act of creating could shake loose the plaster from the walls of my skull.

To be truthful, practice is new to me. For most of my life, I have relied on talent and oftentimes I would stumble across it. I did not study but listened and took the tests. I did not try because that would make failing all the worse.

I often wonder what could have happened if I practiced.

If I practiced loving myself would I have found love in other people?

I have practiced drawing fat cats. Now I can draw them in many forms and in many situations.

Practicing has been the secret sauce all along.

The things I had applied myself to practicing had never been as whimsical and harmless as those fat cats. The things I practiced were easy and startling innate.

I practiced hating myself so I could hate other people. I practiced asthma attacks so the college athletic trainer would not force me to run. I practiced insecurity so I didn't intimidate the people I wanted to want to be around me.

These days I am practicing good things. I have sticky notes dotting my walls with uplifting phrases. When I am in a part of my house where I encounter them, I practice reciting them. I hope they will become as much a part of my heart as the walls they are adhered to.

And now, I also practice saying no. Instead of all those asthma attacks wouldn’t it have been easier to just say no?