We never meant it as a compliment, shouting “bird brain” to someone across the playground. I suppose we thought small meant insignificant. Without worth. It was far from the only thing we got wrong.

I have been filling this sketchbook daily now for sixth months. As with anything, that first blank page seemed insurmountable. “Just start…” I would tell myself. Experience has taught me that beginning is always the hardest. Once you’re doing it, you’re doing it, and don’t have time to think of all the what ifs. Almost touching the page, I would pull back. Then forward. Wait. Questioning. “Oh, stop fluttering,” I told myself. And there it was – the answer – right in front of me, where it typically waits. I sketched out the first little bird. Simple. Cute. “Nothing here I can’t rise above,” it seemed to say, so I painted another. And another.

Each day they became more elaborate. People with birds. Birds on books. Almost “Scarlet Letter”-like, I took the problem and made it my art. My creations. My joy.

I remember sitting in the overflow tiny houses behind Jefferson Senior High. Barely insulated from the cold of winter, reading the book for the first time. All that “A” stood for beyond the book. Alexandria, the town I was born, the one I knew I would have to flee to become the Artist that lived in my soul. Had I mentioned it then, aloud, I could have been that “bird brain”…and I have to admit I was afraid of the label. Now I wear it proudly. Now I wear it proudly. I am that bird brain. Fluttering to create with all the fear and joy that still holds. Daily.

The thing is, I, we, get to decide. I pick up my pencil, And I rise.