Call it the hot and sticky weather (unusual for Scotland). Call it the approach of 40. Call it the congruence of thoughts and various blog posts.
Whatever I call it, it feels like a call, of sorts, to shake a few things up. Try some new things. Live dangerously, even – or dangerously for me.
What does that mean? Dangerous might mean stepping into unfamiliar territory, even territory that I’ve purposely avoided for most of my life. Like drawing.
Like a lot of people, I tended to expect that drawing is just something that you’re good at. Or not. I was in the ‘not’ group from a fairly early age.
Thankfully I found words instead of pictures – and those did me well for a long time. They still work well now, in fact. But all of a sudden, I seem to be coming across encouragements to draw.
At first, I thought they might be for Junior Player – some things to try out over the summer. Then I read a blog post talking about kids learning to draw for themselves. Interesting.
Shortly after that, I found some ‘how to draw’ books in my favourite second-hand book shop. I decided to buy them. (They didn’t have to be for me, right?)
In the meantime, I read another post about a family all drawing together for a month. But somehow, a day or two before, I announced the drawing project to Junior Player – and found myself saying that it was for both of us.
Committed now. Deep breath.
I like learning new things. They have tended to be things that fit with what I can already do. They might add a bit of challenge, but they often come back to some form of book learning, and writing.
I can’t get away with writing if I’m meant to be drawing. The best I can do to sidle round it is to draw – and write about it afterwards.
At the same time, the second article reminded me of what I’d been reading about for writing skills – and what I’d set in motion when I started off the ‘write a post a day for a month‘ endeavour.
It isn’t necessarily about being good. Having it all sussed in advance. It is about turning up, trying, maybe mixing things up a bit when the first rush of inspiration or intention is used up.
Will I put up my pictures to go with posts? Dunno. Maybe. I am meaning to do photos to go with posts – maybe it’s a nudge in that direction.
But I started to realise that it’s part of a wider pattern of trying new things at the moment. Some of them are a bit tricky, but manageable (first go at making sushi? I’ll tell you about that another time).
Others are emerging, little by little. Changes in what I want to eat. There may also be more.
So I’ve given myself a new blog category to go with it: challenge. It won’t be a series for a month. (Trust me, I don’t need to introduce that many challenges at one time.)
Drawing will certainly be a challenge for me, but I’ll give it a go. And that’s probably enough for now. To turn up, to give it a go, whether it’s scary or not.