It Escaped

The other night I couldn't sleep, so I pulled out my paints and watercolor pencils. I didn't know where to start, so I painted a card for a friend.

I mailed it today, so I don't have it anymore. I notice this because as I think of it, I want to inspect it again--criticize it, fix it, or add more to it (which might actually be taking away from it). I don't remember doing all of these things "sufficiently" as I made it last night. I couldn't take the time to take it apart because more important was its installation into a packet that was otherwise complete. More important was making it for my person. More than it had to be perfect, last night, it had to be be for my recipient.

The more I try to call it to memory to analyze it, the quicker my recollection disintegrates. It's no use.

I painted in the colors and the outlines and the patterns as an expression of love, the expression of which was made complete by breaking it off and mailing it away. It doesn't seem it ever belonged to me. If it did, I would have surely killed it.

My sister caught me off guard the other day by asking how long I was going to keep my job because she thought I was going to be a writer. Didn't I want to be a writer anymore? I just looked at her and blinked. I didn't even touch that one. My family doesn't really read anything I write--Not that there is much I let live.

I think this painted card only survived because I threw it in an envelope before I could kill it. I think it survived because I don't feel the same right to wipe out what belongs to someone else.

It makes me wish I had more like it that gives what I make the right to live.