(no subject)
Dearest -----,
I must have written you a thousand letters over the years and never sent one of them. Here is letter #1001, and I will probably never send it, either.
I am sitting in a jury room right now and there is so little to do that it reminds me of midnight on a Wednesday. All there is to do is sit and sip on Evian, and stare at the lonely misplaced paperclip at your feet, and think.
I suppose this isn't as bad as I'd expected it to be. I had expected to be grilled by lawyers until I came up with the proper answers to all of their questions, to be forced into a courtroom against my will and asked to do something I don't think I could ever do - convict a perfect stranger of a crime they swear they didn't commit. Instead, I bought a bottle of Evian, a chocolate bar and some hard candy, and had a conversation with an absolutely lovely woman. She was very sweet, had the most beautiful black skin I have ever seen, and the face of an African queen. I would love to have drawn her picture.
I started school last week. I think I'll enjoy this semester very much. All of my professors are very professor-ly, save one of my art teachers. She is beautiful. She reminds me very much of Lee Krasner, and every time I look at her Pollock's paintings flash before my eyes. She speaks very clearly and effectively. She has very short, very dark, very messy hair and dresses very strangely, and smells like patchouli, but she is still very beautiful. It's a funny thing about certain women ... even without stylish clothes or any makeup at all, their inner beauty is so powerful that you can't help but notice it on the outside too. I hope that I grow up to be one of those women.
She lectures regularly - long, excessive lectures on the beauty of line and the meaning of abstract art, which is (inarguably) the meaning of life. One lecture in particular struck me to the core. She was teaching us how to "draw properly." As you probably know - as most artists know - everything in art has its counterpart in life. And that particular lecture, as she sat demonstrating the proper way to hold a pencil, was secretly about love.
"Most people, by nature," she told us. "Never step back from their drawing. They stay very close to it the entire time. Most people also, by nature, hold their pencil tight, as if they were writing, because they feel they have more control over the drawing. But look at the type of line you create when you hold your pencil like that. The key is to hold the pencil like this." (She demonstrates a pencil held delicately like a piece of chalk.) "Most people don't like this because they don't feel in control of the pencil. But, I guess the idea is sort of to lose control. Your drawings will be so much better because of it."
I began to think about every relationship I have ever had, and every relationship I have ever witnessed, and suddenly they all became messy amateur drawings hanging in a gallery of artists who held their pencils much too tightly and never once stepped back from their artwork to see what had become of their pictures.
And I suddenly had faith in the idea of true love again. All I needed to do was find a boy who knew how to hold the pencil the right way, and who cared enough to step back from his drawing every now and again.
Love Always.
xo
I must have written you a thousand letters over the years and never sent one of them. Here is letter #1001, and I will probably never send it, either.
I am sitting in a jury room right now and there is so little to do that it reminds me of midnight on a Wednesday. All there is to do is sit and sip on Evian, and stare at the lonely misplaced paperclip at your feet, and think.
I suppose this isn't as bad as I'd expected it to be. I had expected to be grilled by lawyers until I came up with the proper answers to all of their questions, to be forced into a courtroom against my will and asked to do something I don't think I could ever do - convict a perfect stranger of a crime they swear they didn't commit. Instead, I bought a bottle of Evian, a chocolate bar and some hard candy, and had a conversation with an absolutely lovely woman. She was very sweet, had the most beautiful black skin I have ever seen, and the face of an African queen. I would love to have drawn her picture.
I started school last week. I think I'll enjoy this semester very much. All of my professors are very professor-ly, save one of my art teachers. She is beautiful. She reminds me very much of Lee Krasner, and every time I look at her Pollock's paintings flash before my eyes. She speaks very clearly and effectively. She has very short, very dark, very messy hair and dresses very strangely, and smells like patchouli, but she is still very beautiful. It's a funny thing about certain women ... even without stylish clothes or any makeup at all, their inner beauty is so powerful that you can't help but notice it on the outside too. I hope that I grow up to be one of those women.
She lectures regularly - long, excessive lectures on the beauty of line and the meaning of abstract art, which is (inarguably) the meaning of life. One lecture in particular struck me to the core. She was teaching us how to "draw properly." As you probably know - as most artists know - everything in art has its counterpart in life. And that particular lecture, as she sat demonstrating the proper way to hold a pencil, was secretly about love.
"Most people, by nature," she told us. "Never step back from their drawing. They stay very close to it the entire time. Most people also, by nature, hold their pencil tight, as if they were writing, because they feel they have more control over the drawing. But look at the type of line you create when you hold your pencil like that. The key is to hold the pencil like this." (She demonstrates a pencil held delicately like a piece of chalk.) "Most people don't like this because they don't feel in control of the pencil. But, I guess the idea is sort of to lose control. Your drawings will be so much better because of it."
I began to think about every relationship I have ever had, and every relationship I have ever witnessed, and suddenly they all became messy amateur drawings hanging in a gallery of artists who held their pencils much too tightly and never once stepped back from their artwork to see what had become of their pictures.
And I suddenly had faith in the idea of true love again. All I needed to do was find a boy who knew how to hold the pencil the right way, and who cared enough to step back from his drawing every now and again.
Love Always.
xo