Returning home from the city, from the courtroom, felt like a cleansing. I needed to create something, not just react, not just survive. I bought a sketchbook and a set of pencils. I had no talent, but I felt a compulsion to try.
I went to the plaza and sat on our usual spot by the fountain. I opened the book to a blank page and, with clumsy, unsure strokes, I began to draw. Not the watchtowers from my failed project, and not the angry face of Arturo Vega. I tried to draw the way the neon light from the isaw stall hit the water. I tried to capture the feeling of that place, the memory of a shared ice candy and a promise made under the artificial stars.
It was terrible. The perspective was wrong, the shading was a mess. But for the first time in months, my mind was quiet, focused only on the line, the shape, the memory. It was a meditation. It was a different way of remembering.