How I Started Before I Felt Ready
The sketchbook had been open to the same blank page for eleven days.
It was for the school art fair, and I knew exactly what I wanted to draw. A tall tree, a lantern hanging from a low branch, a little girl underneath it looking up. I could see it perfectly in my head. That was the problem. The picture in my head was beautiful, and anything I made with my hands would be worse.
So I did what any sensible person does. I reorganized my pencils. I cleaned my desk. I made tea, drank half of it, and made another one.
The blank page watched me quietly, the way a dentist watches you pick a magazine.
What if I start and it looks bad?
What if I’m not ready yet?
What if I wait until I feel inspired?
The ready that never comes
“How long have you been getting ready?” Zoe asked, when I told her.
“Eleven days.”
“And how ready do you feel?”
I looked inside. “Less than on day one.”
“Exactly.” She tapped the table with her pencil. “Ready doesn’t come before you start, Lina. It comes from starting. It’s like a bike. You can’t feel balanced while it’s parked.”
I wanted to argue. Instead I said, “But I don’t even know where to begin.”
That was the real sentence, the one I’d been circling for days. And Zoe, for once, did not say anything wise. She just opened her backpack and took out a little round kitchen timer, the kind shaped like a tomato.
· · ·
Five minutes
“This is the deal,” she said, turning the dial. “Five minutes. That’s it. You are allowed to draw badly for five minutes. When it rings, you can stop, and nobody will say a word.”
“What if it’s terrible?”
“Then you’ve made five minutes of terrible, and you can throw it out. Honestly, terrible is still a start.”
I took the pencil. The timer began to tick, loudly, like a very small clock with something to prove. My hand drew a line. It was a crooked line. Then another one. The trunk of the tree came out too thin, and the lantern looked like a lemon.
But something odd happened around minute three. I forgot to judge it. I was too busy fixing the trunk. And when the timer rang, I said, “Wait. Give me a little more.”
“It’s your timer now,” said Zoe, and went back to her sandwich.
Terrible, and mine
I worked for forty minutes that day. The drawing was not the one in my head. It was messier, warmer, and the girl’s face looked slightly surprised, as if she had just heard good news. By the end, I liked it better than the perfect one, because it existed.
Now I keep the tomato timer on my desk. When I notice myself reorganizing pencils, I ask a simple question: Can I do five minutes? I almost always can. And about half the time, I don’t even hear it ring.
My tree hung at the art fair, between a clay mug and a watercolor dragon. The lantern looks a little like a lemon. If you look closely, the girl is smiling.
With love,
Lina
