BhumiJoshi

It was one of those late night/early mornings.

The ones where the urge to be creative hits so tightly in the chest that her mind races.

Planing bits and pieces of drawings, paintings, poems, books, films, websites, lyrics and pottery. Flowing rivers of color schemes and music in her mind, jot notes on scrapes of paper, doodles and paint blobs on canvases.

Those mornings are her least productive kind, she thinks. She gets nothing done, she says, and a million more things started. She wakes after falling asleep from pure creative exhaustion, only to find herself numb again.

No color. No words. Not one creative idea in sight. Overwhelmed from all the newly attempted works around her, she solemnly wipes the sleep from her eyes. Rubs her nose roughly. Checks the time. 9am. On the dot.

She yawns and lifelessly lifts herself from the sofa, placing canvases and papers from the floor back on to the coffee table. “What a mess!” she thinks. Her baggy tee and sweat pants are covered in lead smudges and paint speckles. Her half-up pony tail lazily falls around her neck.

She makes her way to the kitchen, and faces an even bigger mess, clicks on the electric kettle and opens the near empty, but intensely messy fridge. Yogurt. That’ll do. She finds the cleanest dirtiest spoon on the counter and wipes it in her t-shirt.

The kettle clicks, she reaches for a mug, knocks it to the floor and smashes the handle off. She has no reaction. No jump. No motion to clean it up. Just reaches for another mug, places an herbal tea bag in, pours and continues to eat her raspberry yogurt.

The hot water rains over her face and hair. She stands naked, alone, with no thought. Her shower meditations revive her she says. Puts the moisture back into her brain so she can function again, for another day.

Getting dressed she watches herself in the mirror. She always sees herself as a peculiar, familiar stranger. Judges her harshly, yet loves her like a sister. She sees beauty from time to time, but only on those really good days- or evenings. And only for very short moments. Mostly she thinks she looks funny and pale and weird. The comments on her profile prove that she has fun-house mirrored eyes. Everyone she meets speaks of a beauty that she only glimpses. She longs so deeply to see it. But she is o.k with having only other people see it– as long as they see it, it is real somewhere.

She has such love in her heart for others. Sees beauty in the most unique of places: wrinkles on hands, moles on faces, fat on thighs, and grey in hair. “Every smile is to be celebrated”, she thinks. She sees other people as perfect creations. Works of art, beautiful with their paint globs and typos. She looks at the world in wonderment. Wide eyed and grinning on the inside.

The content in her heart, as she’s walking down the street, along the river, and through the park, is enough to draw any creature near her. When she is outside, alone, she emits life-force radiance that surely effects the ether. Making the sun shine a little brighter, the clouds float a little fluffier and the birds sing a little sweeter. Everything she sees, hears, tastes, feels she wants to some how capture in a creation. Seeing the light in everything, she wants to share that with the world. Write it. Paint it. Film it. Sing it. Feel it. Breathe it.

But then she goes home. Her mess. Her solitude. Her passion to create. Her inaction. Not quite getting anything finished, not quite expressing the love in her surroundings, she absorbs her mind in self-doubt. Questioning her sanity. Dimming her light.

If she could just let go of those thoughts, stop thinking and more feeling, she could create the masterpieces that are resting every so sweetly just under her surface. She will one day, when she has built up enough passion, when it, unable to contain any longer, bursts forth like a geyser. Beautiful works of art, touching the hearts of people, stirring smiles and inspiration, will fall from her fingers at a natural pace and a gorgeous truth will finally connect. She lays back on her rainbow acrylic stained sofa and smiles with her eyes closed. She does have peace, it is just hiding under the tizzy of thought.

Keep breathing.

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