The Blank Paper within My Hand

As artists, have you ever had that dreaded time when inspiration wasn't happening?

The Blank Paper within My Hand

The paper, blank in my hand, asks for creation. But of what can I borne, when my mind is as blank as the paper resting beneath my wrist? I am without thought, imagination, stifled since three years to the day. The paper, blank in my hand, asks for creation, but I have nothing to bear. So, I ask the paper instead, of what can it bear for me? Staring at the white page grants nothing, so to what purpose has this thin sheet of tree to my life? To what purpose has it to me that I should take pencil to page, scribble a bit and say voila? Nothing. This paper, blank in my hand, has no purpose. It cannot ask for creation in the same way that I cannot ask for inspiration from a blank page. This paper, it will never be good to me. So I crinkle it into the tightest ball my fist can make and throw it into the waste basket amongst the others; I cannot create. Yet, may it be that another sheet has miraculously appeared within my lap. It flutters fleetingly until I look upon this page, and then it is still, as still has my heartbeat, for a moment I felt something, something that I haven’t felt since three years to the day. I slap the page onto the desk and with pencil in hand create shapes, create images, create life. The paper glows happily beneath my wrist, its sharp corner points at a stack of color pencils, the other corner reaches for a pen. And I take this pen, and I trace my lines, and trace, and trace, and trace until the white paper beneath my wrist looks like a page from a coloring book. And I create. I reach for the colors and I fill everything in. Hours pass. Hours, I say, for I colored past the moment when my fingers became stiff and hand numbed, and I colored some more. The page, it comes to life beneath my wrist, it comes to life. There was not a moment within the time my pencil struck the page to the time I wiped away the last dust of color that I stopped to wipe sweat from my brow. And it was worth every moment, for when I look upon the page there thrives creation in all its glorified colors, dancing playfully upon the page as I smile back. The characters wave and so do I. They talk amongst one another and tell stories and live like I live. The paper, no longer blank in my hand, asked for creation, and I had borne this very wish.