The Artist is Brave
Her name was Jennifer. She was the first person to scribble a prescription on a piece of paper to let me know that I was crazy. The eyes on her face didn’t look like eyes, but empty pools of water. “Crazy?” I asked. “What do you mean, I’m crazy?” She acted like it was a silly question. “I think you need something to calm the voices in your head,” she went on, “the medication will help you.” She tears the chart from her notebook and presents it to me. I’m not impressed. “I’ll send this into the pharmacy. You can pick up the prescription in a couple of hours. Come back to see me next month. We can up the dose if it’s not working or if things get worse.” She mumbles. I took her piss-poor-hardly-legible diagnosis and stormed out of the office. The door slams behind me.
“I mean, seriously lady? We’ve known each other for five minutes and you’ve already got your “She’s-Crazy-Alright” label drawn up to stamp on my forehead? “Fuck that,” I said, and I decided to take a walk.
The paper crumples inside my fist. “You can take my dose and shove it up your ass.” And I threw her prescription in the garbage can.
I followed a crack in the sidewalk to an empty park bench. The flowers on either side of the armrests were dying. Their wilting petals and draught-induced-dryness made my heart sink. “So you’re telling me that people get away with letting flowers die and I’m the crazy one?” I twisted the cap off of my water-bottle and offered them a drink. “This ones on the house,” I told them, and I poured the water into the soil at their roots.
I spread myself on the park bench and use my backpack as a pillow. Folded knees point towards the kaleidoscope of sun-stained leaves dancing between the breeze. The artist dreams of paint.
I wondered why Jennifer never asked me, “Why don’t you try asking Your Crazy to paint a picture with you?”
On that park bench, I asked My Crazy to become my friend. I held out my trembling hand with my eyes closed and it gave me a tube of paint. It said, “I was wondering when you’d ask me if I knew a thing or two about painting. Lucky for you, I’ve been giving this whole “patience” thing a shot. Now, what I’m about to tell you will change the very nature of your creative thinking..” It paused for dramatic effect before continuing, “every color has a sound.” It told me. And I watched the blank canvas scream.
My Crazy led me into the forest one afternoon. It told me to seek advices from the trees. “What you don’t know,” it told me, “they will show you.” I sat with my legs crossed in the dirt, mixing paint with my fingertips under the shelter of their branches. I listened to them. I asked them if they liked my work and a leaf fell on the center of my forehead. I stood up from the bench and took a walk. The wandering continued.