All papers are different. Some work better with water colors. Others, pencil. Acrylics. Pastels like it a little rough. If gessoed, you can use oil. I dance through all of them. Mixing. Matching. Stumbling. One working better than the other. Some not at all. But every once in a while, the color goes on so perfectly, so easily, so accepting of all my imperfect strokes. And the beautiful irony is, this doesn’t lock me in, but sets me free. It dares me to try. To move forward. To experiment. To attempt. To get better. 

I had three such “papers” growing up. My grandfather. My grandmother. My mother. All so very different. One stable. One carefree. One dancing between. And when I came to each, of course I tested them as a child will test any paper. Will you love me if…? Each one did. No matter what I scribbled. They loved me. 

Even with all this love. This undeniable proof, I’m not proud of the fact that I can still worry. But I learn the lesson, again, and for the first time, daily. In the midst of creation, I forget all of the what ifs, and get completely gathered in the what is — and what is it? — beautiful. Even on the roughest of days, I have to laugh and think, today, I’m a pastel. 

Just writing the words, “worry less. create more.”  — the curve of each letter carries the love that dares me to try.