Writing, Art, and Reading

Some of my goals are coming along a wee bit slower than I’d like:

1. Read the whole Bible.
2. Read a new book each week.
3. Draw every night before I go to bed.
4. Write more frequently and with more depth.

These goals aren’t trivial little ones, but they are the ones I perceive to give me lifeblood, humanity, and centeredness. Here are some samples of what I have been able to crank out. Please know I recognize the limited talent in the re-beginnings of my creativity. When I let something like my creativity lie dormant for so long, I have found that it takes much more than I previously suspected to get it revved back up.

Here is a doorknob, my hand, and a lamp:

Here is a writing in response to the prompt: “If you only had fifty words, what would you say?” I added the additional requirement of using five words per line, then I separated it into more musical lines. It’s not very poetic, but it gets the idea across and fulfills the assignment.

To Educators in Indiana

Do not give up.
Remember why you became a teacher.
A calling? To correct wrongs done to you long ago?
To make this place better?
To leave an indelible mark for good, better, best humanity?
Surely you did not
become a teacher
to watch roomfulls of students
take inane tests.

I also wrote this piece of crap (self-deprecating, I know) based on a prompt from Natalie Shapero’s poem “Stars.” I used one of her lines: “best now just to kneel.”

Best now just to kneel

Confess your sins; good girl should
Tell them all; bad girl must
Softly now and truly now

Clean the floors; hands and knees
Until they shine; show your disfigured face
Quickly now and carefully now

Take it; you know you want it
Don’t cry; you know you want it
Slowly now and slowly

Best now just to kneel