Creating Anyway

Sometimes I think the scariest thing in the world is a blank canvas.

Not just because it’s empty, but because it isn’t. It’s full of every voice that ever told you not to bother. Every teacher who frowned, every neighbour who said, “That’s nice, do you make any money with it?”Full of your father’s disbelief about your wasted life (and his!), your own hesitation, the memory of the last thing you made that no one ever saw, all the drawings you traced, the poetry you wrenched out of your gut, all those attempts to make meaning—put aside, unacknowledged, unappreciated.