I like to switch mediums. There is a feel to each. There is a feel that transfers from canvas to paint to brush to hand to heart. And so it is with charcoal and wood. The charcoal grabs onto the wood differently. Not smoothly, like the paint. It doesn’t have the same ease, but it wants to hang on, just the same. I don’t fault it for not acting like paint. It’s not paint. It’s charcoal. And it wants to be beautiful. It is.

I had lunch with a school friend the other day. We were reminiscing. My husband asked us about the diversity of our class. We struggled. Wanting to reveal it. It wasn’t there. So when I went to college, thankfully, joyfully, so necessarily, my world colored in so many ways. People of different color, of different country, of different religion and language. Every medium. And I had to learn. We all had to learn. (Have to keep learning.) People respond differently. And different is not wrong. Different is not frightening. Different is paint on canvas, charcoal on wood. And it is beautiful.

It’s easy to get stuck. Stuck in what we know. With who we know. And change can be frightening. Even a little messy. But if we allow it, feel it, let it move from hand to heart, oh, how beautiful it can be.

There is paint on my keyboard. Charcoal under my nails. Touching each word. Not perfect, but reaching out to you, with every medium of my heart, trying to be beautiful.