(a log sitter)

I was captured by this excerpt from Jenny Ofill’s novel, Department of Speculation. I can see her four year old little girl in front of me. And I love that child’s wisdom:

Someone has given my daughter a doctor’s kit. Carefully, she takes her own temperature, places the pressure cuff around her arm…”Would you like to be a doctor when you grow up?” I ask her. She looks at me oddly. “I’m already a doctor,” she says.

Already. But am I already an artist? Wow. That question. I thought of how I resisted that term/title for so long. An artist. What did it take to earn that name?

And that’s where I’ve stood. Earning it. Versus, as the sweet child is noting, being the darn thing. Being the darn artist.

Okay, so now. Every piece I make is still reaching. Still reaching for the art I want to create. Maybe, okay, maybe I can be that artist.

Maybe I always was that artist.

Even at age four.