The Day My Little Flowers Saved Me

The structure of this piece is pretty simple…anxiety turning into calm. As frantic and explosive as it is, the process was soothing, filling, soulful and worthwhile.

Let’s back up a little bit. I have been making great strides with the cleaning up and renovation of Honeychurch. Everyday this little house looks better and better. The bad news is, I haven’t gone more than two blocks in nearly four months. That’s dangerous for an agoraphobic. It all becomes too comfortable. Everything has become deliverable. There is no real reason for me to leave….

But, today was one of those days where I simply had to walk up to the shopping plaza. No excuse for not going. If I may be absolutely truthful, I call it “taming my crazy.”

I have to combat it often, need to look at it, size it up, see what I can do to beat it, and win. And today? Today I started drawing another motif. About an hour into it I realized I was doing everything I could to avoid leaving the house and heading up to the shopping plaza. More flowers here, more colors there. It gets bigger and more beautiful with every flower I dare to doodle.

Then I could hear myself, finally. “Gregory, you need to go up there.”

“Let me take a chance at a little more color on this flower. I’ll leave in a little while….”

“Gregory, you need to do this.”

“But, I need to do a little more blending first.”

And for a good two hours my crazy got the best of me. My anxiety was on fire. My fear was ruling my life….and I just kept sketching. I was locked in, my head clenched on doing only this, sufficiently this and there was no real reason why I needed to leave.

“Because you’re missing out on beauty,” the little voice said.

I quickly stood, grabbed my keys, tucked my wallet in my back pocket and bolted. It was almost immediate. I locked up the front door and didn’t look back. “Go! Go look for beauty,” exclaimed the little voice.

And there were so many beautiful things to look at, not to mention that lovely spring breeze that kept brushing smoothly by my face, not to mention the feel of the sun on the nape of my neck.

I’ll never sell this little piece. I want to frame it, place it somewhere near the front door, just so I can be reminded of the day my little flowers saved me.

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