Grudge Eraser

Paola couldn’t fall asleep. Driven to her desk by insomnia, she had picked up a piece of paper and a pencil. On her desk, she saw a vase with dried flowers which seemed like a good model for a beginner. She had always admired people who could draw. And it’s a nice pastime without a screen. She tried to draw what she saw but all the proportions were completely off. She knew that she had to shade the vase to give it some depth. And that there were methods and rules on how to do this. But anything she might have once known was a blank on her mind. What she suddenly did remember was what her 7th-grade art teacher had told her. According to him, there were people with and without skill. And she believed it. It was only later that she realized that drawing, painting and so many other skills that some people seemed to possess effortlessly, were anything but. Most of these skills have been crafted over the years. And just because you enjoy it, or it helps you relax, that doesn’t mean that you’re not honing this skill at the same time. She didn’t deny that talent existed, but at the end of the day, hard work always pays off. At least to the degree of being decent at something…
Be that as it may, it was undeniable that she would not struggle with a simple sketch of a vase if she had been drawing continuously for the past 10 years. Unfortunately, she had believed the words of an eccentric art teacher, whose esthetic was Pablo Picasso on crack (an art style not far off a regular Picasso).

She grabbed an eraser and started erasing the smudgy leaves that didn’t match the flowers attached to them. The paper became crinkly, gray, and thinned out under the increasing pressure she put on the eraser. Her mind began to wander to other things she had put off or given up for ridiculous reasons. Not making a trip because it was allegedly too dangerous for a young girl (even though she had seen people do it), not picking up a language because someone said it would take your whole life to master it (even though little children speak it just fine). Random grudges crept back into her mind like scribbles of dark clouds.

For a moment, she looked down at her paper where there was only a faint gray trace of the pencil, surrounded by bits of rubber. She drew another line that was somehow even worse than the previous one and when she tried to erase it, the paper couldn’t take it anymore. She wanted to blame it on the cheap paper. But there was also only as much that a piece of paper could take. She felt tired and thinned out. Paola took another look at the torn picture. It hadn’t been as bad as it had seemed to her. The worst damage was caused by the eraser. The picture itself was merely amateurish, not bad. She also had to admit that her teacher had just discouraged her. He never took a utensil out of her hand or kicked her out of class. In that man’s mind, she must have already merged with several other students. At that thought, she burst out laughing like a maniac. Had she seriously allowed a comment from a single person who used to see her for only two hours a week, throughout one school year, to keep her from starting a hobby?! A faint knock on her wall reminded her that it was the middle of the night, and she had housemates.

She shook her head, smiling, and turned a new page.