Nothing was working. I’d done several drawings with absolutely no life in them and finally walked out on the deck in my bathrobe to sketch one of my wife’s beautiful roses.                                                  *        *        *        *

If I’ve been away for a while, sometimes even two or three days without sketching or drawing, (which is rare) it seems that I need to be invited back in. The links to the mechanisms have already rusted, and the contacts have grown calloused. The gate to the secret garden is locked and the password to my world has changed; the feel is gone! It’s as if I’ve offended the keeper of the keys and now I must earn my way back to the privileged place. I must reapply for my licence; my passport has been revoked. Paperwork! I must redo my application? Draw, sketch, sketch, draw, one after another of awful, awkward, strokes and sketches that fall miserably short of where I was and who I am when the magic was upon me only a brief time ago.

Magic? I don’t believe in magic! Do I?

It’s hard work that opens the door- nothing else! Always. Work through it! And “it” will come back.

But it’s not the rose, is it? I ask myself as I walk away from my drawing board glancing over my shoulder.

It’s not the rose at all.

It’s the feel of the rose . . .  the suggestion of the rose . . . the memory . . .

Hmmmm . . . 

Somewhere I hear an echo . . .
a subconscious echo. (I like those.)

That’s it, isn’t it?

I’m not certain, but I think I just heard something tumble; far away, but near.

Tumblers in a lock.

Welcome, says a faceless man holding open the door.

Thank you, I reply.

It’s good to be back!