"To create it, to shape it, from my experiences. Creation ..."

Inside me are things I want to create, things with a pureness bound from full expression by the imperfection of any medium. These things are always just beyond my skill to express. The words or the colors or the shapes fall short of the images inside.

The images are not always beautiful, but because they are mine they have a pure truthful quality which seems to be lost when I attempt to express them. Without attempting expression I cannot find them again and I lose them.

I want to play out loud for all to hear the music that is me. I cannot put those strident chords, the soft background, and the emotional swells on paper. I cannot even begin. I want to draw the people I find in my dreams. I can tell their personality from the twinkle in the eye, the tilt of the head, their walk, their gestures. How can a drawing twinkle? Walk? Gesture? My unskilled hand sucks the life from the eyes, the poise from the body. Three dimensions, modeling, or sculpting and beyond, are just as lifeless. They gain in depth, but they are not what I see inside. No piece of art can flame with creative emotion, emotion that makes one weep with inspiration; it can only hold a seed of the fire. Never could any mere representation convey all I feel.

There is a tree. ATree' is more than a word, it is the total of years of sun, earth, and water. I see this tree at night, a bright moon caught in its bare branches. The air is crisp and Fall is in every breeze. The sky is cobalt blue behind the black tree. The black is deep, as deep as a hundred years of wisdom. The tree has been a part of the Earth's life for longer than I, and shall remain once I am gone. Awe, a deep reverence for Nature, tightens my throat ...

My fingers rush across the keys as I try to show you my tree. I can't even convey my frustration. Can you understand the depth of my desire to express what lies within me?

Could it be that creative imperfection is a part of us all? Yes, it could be so. Nothing is ever perfect but the desire to make a perfect representation ... no, even that word implies failure ... the perfect whole drives us to grow and expand our skills.

Sometimes I imagine what it would be like if I never tried. If I never tried to express my ideas, where would they go? They would stagnate. Think what it would be like to know you are stagnating. It takes courage to write, to express oneself. I hope I will never become a coward. n