I feel it, the anxiety.  Not the apprehension I feel each time I step up to read my work.  No, the fear of losing the momentum created by this instructor.  Who, I wonder, will push me, keep me on schedule, suggest a topic I can ponder for another writing direction?

     In the material store, calmness settles over me.  I begin to relax, reviewing the various patterns, textures, colors, lost in the variety of projects I see in my mind.  The endless ways to use the myriad of materials makes me feel like I am inside the Willie Wonka Chocolate Factory.  Leaving, with four large, extraordinary pieces of fabric.  I see, I have a vision.

     Much like the time I began painting a large angled stripe down my narrow living room wall, dividing it into two colors.  Everyone hated it.  Others couldn't see what I already saw in my mind.  Until I finished.  Then the complaints became compliments.  Am I undiscovered or simply placing thoughts on a school notebook?

     I love the words as I place them on the paper; they have the pattern of material.  A disorganization to others.  My spouse asks what I meant by this or that.  By the end, he may get it, or not.  I don't place them there, the words that is, for anyone to get.  I eventually see it in my mind.  A product.  Well, once I find a topic or direction.

     Would anyone get it?  Would the masses get it?  Could I finally free my mind by freeing my words?  You know, coulda, shoulda, woulda.  I have enjoyed having a mentor.  Why isn't the class twelve weeks long?  There's never enough time, is there?  Besides, would it really matter?  When is enough?  Have we become the eighteen year olds that must move out?  I feel stressed about the end of instruction.

     I begin to paint.  I love the colors I have selected to redo the bathroom.  Then I remember.  I reflect on the time she stopped by my house, saw my work, the paint, the materials, the projects.  She asked me to do her house.  I stammered, stuttered saying, "Uh, thanks but I really just do it for myself."

     I look at my previous work.  Maybe I'll submit a few things.  Maybe I'll take another class and wait.  Maybe I'll create a book of writings, and find an agent.  Maybe...