Because I Will Die Someday

Charcoal in hand, my hand stops.

On the paper, a shape is already taking form. The outline, the slope of the shoulder, the shadow falling beneath the neck. A little more and it will probably be finished. But that “little more” is always the part I fear most.

If I stop here, the empty space might stay alive. If I push one step further, I might reach somewhere deeper. Or I might not reach it at all, and only weigh the whole picture down, and that will be the end. There is no way to know which is right until the drawing is done. Worse, sometimes I still do not know even after it is done.

So my hand stops. Ten seconds, twenty seconds. To me it feels like only a moment.

But lately I have noticed that this “only a moment” has spread well beyond the paper.

Before I post a piece of writing, I check people’s reactions once inside my head. Before I write a reply, I search for a way to say it that cannot be misread. Before I start something new, for some reason I prepare my escape route in advance, in case it does not go well. I have not even moved, and already I have left more than half of it undone.

I do not think that time is a bad thing. Caution has probably protected me more than once.

But one day it occurred to me. This “deciding not to” is also a way of spending time.

A day in which I tried something and failed, and a day in which I did nothing and let it pass, shrink by the same amount. There are days that pass leaving nothing behind, in exactly the measure that I was spared from being hurt. When I noticed that, the direction of my fear shifted a little.

More than failing, what frightens me is a day closing without my having touched anything.

But here is the difficult part. Even if I move my hand with everything I have, there is no guarantee anywhere that it will be rewarded.

Drawing with all my heart does not mean the work will sell. Putting in the hours does not mean it will reach anyone. Continuing every day does not mean someone will find me. There are days when something made with care drifts past without catching on anyone at all.

Perhaps it is this “not knowing” that frightens me most. Because I cannot see the result, starting is frightening. Because there is no guarantee of reward, I want to keep a little distance from the beginning.

But lately I think this way too. If I only ever do the things that are certain to go well, that is closer to confirmation than to challenge. There is a kind of ease in a place where I know I will not fail. But the kind of interest that makes the hand tremble is probably not there. I cannot know until I draw. I cannot know until I put it out. It feels as though the thing that can change me lives only inside that not knowing.

Charcoal is a medium that will not let me hide any of this.

Even when I think I have erased something, it does not erase completely. The trace of where I touched stays faintly in the depths of the paper. The time I spent hesitating, the tremor in my hand, all of it is there when I look back later. A line drawn cleanly and a line faced through hesitation are different somewhere. I cannot say why, but when I look at the picture, I can tell.

It looks like a flaw, but it is probably the most honest record there is.

I do not much like the phrase “to pour your soul into it.” It is a little grand, and saying it out loud starts to feel false. But in the end I think it comes down to this. How much of who you were that day went into a single line, into a single sentence. You can give it everything and still not be rewarded. Even so, what you put in stays somewhere, like a line that will not erase.

Over these past few years, since I began to draw, the way I see things off the paper has changed a little too. The movement in a person’s expression. The way light falls. Noticing shadow and texture while walking through the city. Catching, more than before, the words someone chose not to say. Drawing has also been time spent asking again, little by little, what I look at, what I fear, and what I want to leave behind.

So being aware of death does not feel like a dark thing to me.

It is closer to a sense that keeps me from treating today carelessly. Because it ends someday, I do not want to draw today’s line carelessly. Because it ends someday, I do not want to place the things I want to do too far away. Because it ends someday, I do not want to stop my hand for fear alone.

That does not mean the fear disappears. Even now, failing frightens me, and I still care how others see me. When something I spent time on drifts away, I do sink a little. But lately I often think about the scenery I would never see if I stayed in a safe place.

I return to the paper.

My hand is still stopped. Whether to stop or to push one step further, in the end I do not know. Not knowing, I draw a single line.

It may grow too strong. It may break the empty space. Even so, a line I did not draw stays nowhere. A line I drew, even a failed one, makes the next line a little stronger.

It ends someday. That fact is there, I think, less to hurry me than to let me touch today’s single line once more, properly.

Whether it goes well, I do not know. Even so, it is far better than passing through and leaving nothing behind.

I want these drawings and words to travel openly, and to reach the people who may need them.

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