The Animator

I decided to try sketching one afternoon even though I hadn’t drawn anything in years, and at first it was frustrating because nothing looked like what I imagined, lines went crooked, proportions were all wrong, and the paper started to get messy with eraser shavings and smudges. But as I kept going, I noticed small details I normally ignored—the way shadows fell across my desk, the curve of a coffee mug, the way my cat stretched on the windowsill—and trying to capture them made me focus in a way that felt almost like meditation. Hours passed without me realizing it, and even though the sketches weren’t perfect, they held little stories and moments from that afternoon, and I felt proud in a quiet way that came from simply trying something new and paying attention to small things around me.