but I wouldn’t want to live there

I am in this space I call the Inn Between. It’s a place where I don’t know what I want to express while I look at a blank page or canvas.
There’s a policy at the Inn and it requires a guest must practice and try new things before check-out.
So I watched another artist reel as she added color to drops of water, then brushed them into flowers and it inspired me to try. Can’t say I’m pleased with my results, but it was good practice.
I rekindled the love-hate relationship with the petal brush, pushed too hard with the liner, and then added some inky scribbles for definition and still saw no improvement.
I returned to the reels and admired all the perfect and polished floral paintings and compared mine to theirs, and I felt inadequate.

Fortunately, the phone rang and interrupted my downward spiral. It was Julia, the manager at the front desk. I listened carefully as she spoke.
“Comparison is the thief of joy. In order to do something well, we must first be willing to do it badly. The grace to be a beginner is always the best prayer for an artist. All of it begins at the beginning, with the first small and scary step.”
I rested the handset back in its cradle and packed my supplies. I paid my bill with a Reality Check, the only currency the Inn Between accepts, and went on my way.