I always wished I could draw. For those of you reading this, that can - I am forever envious of your talent. I'm talking about the kind of people that can put pencil to paper, so non-chalantly conjure up an image to remember and think nothing of it. I have a friend who was sitting with me once, and through our conversation she was just scribbling away on a piece of scrap paper..10 minutes later when we got up to go, I glanced at the paper and saw that she had created something so beautiful: a drawing of a girl sitting on a table, tears in her eyes, freckles on her face with her long wispy flowing hair falling around her shoulders, looking towards me as if looking for an answer to a question I could not answer. I watched as that paper then made it's way to the trash can, and it was something that had no meaning to the artist of; but almost meant everything in the world to me.
See, I always wished I could draw. Imagine how bad, if that's already the second time I've told you this. It's an ability that any person would be glad to have, and everyone would be elated to be able to develop. If only that was given to me, the things that I would draw, the dreams that I could explain...the imagination that I could capture would be outstandingly extra-ordinary...something to make the world see where creative talent really lies. But: there's a but. Having discovered my inability to even functionally manage drawing a straight stick-figure, I decided that there was another way to draw that didn't require images..and that way was through words. I was at such a despair, I had felt such a tremendous feeling of guilt-filled sorrow that I decided that there was no way I could let go of something that I wanted so badly. So I began to write.
There is always more than one way to do something, and I thought to myself "If you can not draw and paint a picture in the beholder's view, you must learn to create that picture in the beholder's mind." And I set to it. I have tried to teach myself to use words in such a way, I thought that there had to be a way where I could describe the feeling you get when it's so cold that you're shivering, and your jacket is zipped all the way up, your gloves trying hard to keep the feeling in your bones and your scarf is so tight round your neck , your hat pulled way low so your ear-tips don't feel the chill, how you have your hands folded under your arms because the cold is literally biting into your skin, making you feel like there are pins and needles in the wind when it blows at you in the middle of a snow-storm. My thirst for being able to draw fueled my desire to become better at creating that picture in your mind.
The other day, I was at a construction site, and you should see what I see...when it's blistering hot outside, and you can feel the heat vapors rising off the road, sweltering humidity with the dry heat scorching the pavement..they're like jungles of iron and steel, right in the belly of the building..maneuvering through it's guts and bones, as it bellows and roars all around me, so much activity inside and out...it's a living breathing thing, and we are all swimming around inside of it. You never come out clean, or without some scratches or bumps, it's the risk of being swallowed by so great a monster...iron, steel, wood, glass, aluminum and noise...so much noise. Sweat, heat, yelling and screaming, sparks flying left, right and center...cranes screeching, and little construction vehicles moving around, among thousands of people in one site, as you try to work your way through the often deadly maze to the other side...helmet causing sweat to roll down your forehead into your eyes, sweltering heat and you are struggling to see...yelling at the top of your lungs as you try to communicate...being pushed and shoved around by the hundreds of people all moving at the same time, dust and sand in the air and you are trying hard to breathe...watch your head above because you might hit it on that iron bar, watch your step so you dont trip and fall 35 floors...I remember thinking to myself "If only I could remember this, and be able to show people.". I realized that the only way to be able to do so was to be able to write about it, since there are no better ways than to show someone a picture of it, unless if it was in their own imagination.
Imagination: "the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality." The imagination is a powerful machine, and another such advanced and complicated mechanism does not exists. It's an ability that we are innately born with, something that never leaves us, and something that never stops turning and churning it's gears. It struggles so hard to create an image of anything we see, read or hear about, further creating entire scripts, stories, fairytales and futures...based on something so simple as one word or one sound. The imagery it creates, we can process faster than the speed of light, since everything is transferred through electrical synapses, right? Sometimes I can imagine the brain with small blue sparks zipping around it, and I can almost see a tiny dark thundercloud above it, as we brainstorm at our hardest...just on the verge of the thundershower so badly needed to cool our over-heated brain.
I have come to learn that the difference between a drawing and a story is that the drawing can capture a hundred thousand words; but just a thousand words can create a whole movie in our minds. Words are just words, useless and un-appealing when used in most scenarios and in most situations. However, once that scarf becomes a red scarf with black dots, and a white lace edging around it, to be worn with a black evening dress, arms length gloves, and click-click high-heels, it becomes so much more than a scarf. When that blazer becomes the sharp dark blue suede blazer with a certain shine to it, especially after being brushed and gleaming in the sun for all to see, keeping you a bit warm in the autumn chilled weather and standing out against your dark brown corduroy pants...there's just so much more involved. It's the magic of the mind that is just waiting for that little extra bit, so that it can quickly draw up that picture for you. For those few of you who follow this journal, you might be able to notice that I am practicing this on you...as if there is a theatre, and you are the audience, and I am writing the script to the movie that plays in your head.
And for those of you that want to learn how, or at least get a start on it..it's not as hard as you think. You don't need a tough vocabulary or and extensive literary standing. You just have to be able to attach some emotion and feeling to your words, which comes from your charisma. Imagine a picture in your head, and see how you could describe it. Feel it, and try to find the right words, eventually something in your head will click and unlock, and when you start to write it, your words will start painting a watercolor painting in your mind, and the minds of your audience. Every word is like a stroke of a paintbrush, and every color is another color to your painting, every language a different brush and every thought a new painting. The potential is unlimited; this is a stage my friends, and we will be YOUR audience. Try it..and for those of you who can draw, you are blessed - as your pictures can say a thousand words, but your paintings and drawings and sketches; they are all still. My pictures and my paintings and my drawings in the mind of the reader, run like the wind.
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ray