Why aren't you drawing a brown horse?

 Timothy starts to lift his half worn pencil to the paper. He loved horses and he loved to draw. It was a marriage of passion and focus. He mostly liked black horses, but would occasionally draw other phenotypic varieties. He loved to draw horses in action. Horses in the middle of leaping or running. Horses standing on their hind legs with lightning bolts in the background. He once road a horse and he felt free, content and happy.

As he starts to sketch the structure of the horse, one of his classmates comes up to peak over his shoulder. She seems intrigued, but also somewhat disturbed. Her curious face transforms into a face of concern and mild disgust. She clears her throat and tries to speak to Timothy. Timothy could feel her cold breath on the back of his neck. 

" What are you drawing?" She asks with a semi aggressive tone.  

Timothy then clears his throat. " It's a horse. A horse standing up on his hind legs."

The girl puts a finger on her chin. "Hm, that is interesting. And what color is this horse?" 

Timothy starts to feel a little uncomfortable. Understandably. He quickly blurts out "black" while his mind starts to question why she would ask such a specific question. For the most part, no one even cared what he was drawing. In fact, most of the time his classmates would make fun of him for being so introverted and focused on drawing.

The girl starts to digest the answer in her head. She doesn't seem very pleased. 

"Why don't you draw a brown horse...or even a white horse?" She asked with a a condescending tone. 

Now Timothy is started to get a little worried. He puts down his pencil and then turns his head as to engage with his female classmate. " Well, I have drawn brown and white horses before and even red and green horses, but for some reason I prefer brown horses."

The girl breathes quickly through her nose with a huff and a puff. "Well, that's very interesting. I wonder why you like brown so much.. why not mix it up more and include more variety?"

Timothy starts to become slightly agitated. He had lost the focus on his drawing and now it will be harder to get back to it. He takes a deep breath in and tries to formulate an answer that may or may not be sloppily accurate. 

" I guess I never thought about it. I've always been drawn to black horses for some reason, but I never really tried to draw different color horses just for the sake of it. I guess I could, but then again, I don't know what for. Maybe I'll eventually tire of drawing brown horses, who knows. I guess I just like what I like. Is that ok for you?" Timothy cracks a small little half smile after confidently thinking that he explained himself. 

The girl seems to get more agitated. She puts her hands on her hips and clears her throat again to speak again.

" Well, ok, I get it, but maybe some people would enjoy if it there was a bigger variety of horses. And have you heard of pigmy horses? What about ponies? Why stop at the big stallions when you could draw other animals that somewhat look like horses? Even Zebras? That would be cool.." 

At this point Timothy feels like he is on a prank television show. He even looks around the room to see if there are any blatantly obvious hidden cams in plain sight. The temperature of the room seemed to heat up. Timothy could feel himself sweating. The irritation of the girl was uncomfortable. He took a deep breath in. He didn't want to get angry. Every time that he gets angry, he tends to lose his composure. Now was not the time. Today was not the day. 

Timothy gets up slowly. He could feel his knees shake. The girl backs up a few steps, but Timothy puts up his palms as to signal that he means no harm. He looks the girl in the eyes and begins to speak. 

" I see what you are saying, but what does this have to do about me? Where is this coming from? I have made it my whole life up to now without anyone bringing this up. I am sure there is some good in this questioning, but I think that most of this inquiry has to do about you and not me. I feel like I can do things the way I want it especially if I am not hurting someone else. Maybe that's just me. Maybe I'm being selfish, but I will have to say that I will do what I want and if I ever want to draw a zebra I will do that if it interests me at the time. Thank you." 

The girl turns red in the face. You could tell she was upset, but she didn't know what to say. She was obviously not use to people standing up to her. She was use to being on top and in charge. It came from her parents. Her mom was a lawyer and very bossy. Her dad was not there to help out too often. Her bossing people around gave her a sense of purpose and meaning. She got in her own way. She built up her own walls just because she wanted to people to do what she wanted to do. This was indeed an awakening moment.

The girl stomps her foot and raises her voice towards Timothy.

" I bet you only draw boy horses too!" 

She turns around and storms off out of the room. 

Timothy had mixed feelings. He felt good about standing up and not getting mad, but he also felt bad for the girl. He could feel her pain. It radiated out like waves. He looks over at his horse sketch and questions himself. "Should I start drawing other horses and horse like things?" He asks himself inquisitively. He starts to question why he would draw different things just for the sake of drawing different things. Variety for variety sake? For him it was about the quality of what he was drawing. 

When he wanted to draw white horses, he would draw horses. When he wanted to draw big black stallions, he would vigorously go after it. He realized that he didn't need to be pressured to draw things if he didn't want to. His horse drawing time was his time and when was able to get that time in, it was a win win for everyone around him. His health. His Family's health. And the health of everyone around him. 

Timothy goes back to the paper and starts to draw. He gave himself no limits. He gave himself the freedom to do what he want even if he had done it before. "It could only get better", he told himself. 

"The more I draw, the better artist I will become in the future."

~DG