Ugly Drawings, Getting Messy, and Unperfect Poems

[insert picture of me googling: “is unperfect a word?”]

My mom is an incredible artist. Painting, sketching, crafting. She can do it all (and do it well). 

I remember when I was a kid, she would pull out her paints and brushes and canvas, and I would sit there in the dining room, in awe of how everything she created was so beautiful. She would set me up with some paints, too. And I would inevitably throw a huge fit over how ugly my painting was and how I just couldn’t do it like her.

So I’m a writer now. And that suits me. 

To be fair, I’ve been a writer since I could hold a pencil. I imagine putting words on the page the way my mom puts paint on a canvas. I suppose we all have our own creative strengths. 

My daughter, however, has definitely inherited her grandmother’s artistic abilities. She loves to paint and draw and make things. She was recently selected to have her art displayed in the local library’s gallery room!

Lately I’ve been very pulled towards art. Maybe my daughter has been the inspiration, I don’t know. But I have felt a certain longing to create with my hands - to draw or paint or something. 

I’m fairly aware of my own inability in that department though, so I put the idea on the back burner. Then I read Jenna Park’s article last week - Draw like nobody's watching. On quieting your inner critic. - from her newsletter Everything is Liminal. 

I felt like it was the universe pushing me. This was finally my time. I was going to grab a sketch book and draw the most inspired piece of my life. And it turned out - well, maybe, I think I should just show you. 

I had a good solid laugh at that (okay several laughs actually and yes, I’m laughing right now, sitting here in the coffee shop, probably looking like a psycho, thoroughly amused by myself). 

But something Jenna Park said in her article has stuck with me. She said, “If I stay true to the process, lurking among the spreads of all these ugly drawings will be the quiet beginnings of an idea about to take flight." 

And she wasn’t wrong. I mean, I might have very well completely misunderstood the idea the universe was pushing me towards (spoiler alert: it wasn’t drawing). But there has been an idea taking flight through all of this…

What if I just keep doing these silly drawings because it’s fun for me and I’m not worried about it turning out any sort of way? What if I never get any better? What if I don’t even try to get better? What if getting better has nothing to do with it? 

There’s this concept of “freedom within the form” that Adriene Mishler shares in her yoga practice, that’s taken me literal years to digest. There is a sort of intricate dance between discipline and creativity. Can I exercise the discipline to show up and offer myself the freedom to be creative in that space without holding myself to a standard of perfection? 

Can I let it be messy? The fun, the process, the scavenger hunt for meaning? 

I’ve shared before about a particularly creative phase of my life when I would sneak away to coffee shops and scribble poetry on napkins. So in light of this new idea taking flight, I thought, why not now? 

I grabbed the napkin sitting under my coffee cup and started writing. I hesitated half way through, realizing that I didn’t have anything particularly inspiring to say and I wasn’t sure it would be any good. “Freedom within the form,” I thought, “Let it be messy and unperfect.”

Maybe I should title this poem “Messy and Unperfect”. I think I’ll keep it as a reminder that among all these ugly drawings and silly scribbles there is room to make a mess. That it is, in fact, necessary. 

Sometimes it carries you through the process of becoming better, sharpening a skill, improving an ability. And sometimes… sometimes it simply offers a safe space to be yourself, exactly as you are - messy and unperfect. And that is more than just good enough. It’s actually the whole entire point.

*footnotes: 

1. The use of the word “unperfect” was a totally perfect accident and yes, I did initially mean “imperfect” but then thought, nope, I’m keeping it. It is technically a word and it’s just so perfectly UN-perfect for this piece. 

2. Hand to god, as I am finishing this article, a woman has walked into the coffee shop with a postboard drawing and coloring pencils and sits down to finish her artwork.