Without instructions

I’m sitting at my kitchen island with a step-by-step watercolor book. My plan was to go through this thing methodically. The first page has instructions for how to paint blue lines with varying weights and thicknesses. I try this out for two or three strokes before I cast the book aside.

Instead, I take out a new sheet of paper, spray it with water, then paint it evenly with a large brush. Now I’m standing, and my body has joined my effort. I squeeze bright red, yellow, and metallic gold into individual cups in the plastic dish I bought this morning at Michael’s. I swirl red across the page in the shape of an ensō. I watch it web and blur, furring at the edges. Then I touch in yellow, which blooms red into orange. Now the brush seems to be moving with its own rhythm.

Then I get reckless, edging off the paper and onto the granite. I watch the paint begin to dry, and when only damp spots remain, I spray gold across the whole thing. It flecks across the granite and onto my jeans, which I don’t move to clean. The gold tempers shimmer into the wet spots and beads on the dry ones. When I look up, I’ve lost track of time, and myself. I leave the paints out.

A few weeks later, at Smith College, my daughter is off visiting with the track team, and I’m at a hotel on my own. I’m unpacking my laptop to write at the table when I’m pulled to a piece of art on the wall. It’s a line drawing of red geometric shapes contained within an invisible rectangular border. I move closer to study its circles and triangles, swirls and odd angles, each connecting to at least one or two other shapes. Before I know it, I’m ordering supplies.

On the ride home, I find myself daydreaming about this project, how the pens will feel in my hand, and what kind of lines they’ll make. When I get home, I already know the pens have arrived, and I go find them before I unpack. I try each one, making a key of their widths on a piece of scrap paper. The next day, I’m measuring the border with a ruler and pencil so I can erase it when I’m done.

Then I’m penning in my own shapes, making up “rules” as I go. I’m trying to pick a set of shapes to use, but I keep inserting new ones. Question marks. Backward dollar signs. A hint of a music staff. A stop sign. Exclamation points. Letters. I’m placing them at odd angles, tangling them up in one another. A stream of messages moving toward meaninglessness, as I follow them into what comes next.

I’m kind of baffled by this absorption I’m experiencing, and even more confused when I willingly show my pieces to friends without self-consciousness. I know I’ve been flying blind, and I love them anyway.

Weeks go by, and I keep making more. At some point, I’m really trying to figure out what’s going on, and a list I keep of feelings and needs flashes in my head. I return to it when I’m struggling with anxiety, guilt…resentment, things I can interpret as evidence of my inability to stay inside the lines. It’s always comforting to find them on the page of feelings that result from unmet needs. Permission is a relief. But now something different is edging in from that list: the word “PLAY.” When I locate the file, there it is, right next to “MEANING.”

As I finish the first red line-drawing, I erase the penciled-in frame and take it in. Then I select a black pen with a thinner weight and write “INSTRUCTIONS” across the middle. Begin anywhere.