...healthy aloe vera plants by the window...

I did what the redheads said and left the painting for a few days before looking at it again, deciding what's missing. I realized it's a personality that's missing - the brush strokes are so thin, you can't even see the lines well from a distance. What am I afraid of? When I was little I used to trace the edges of shapes darker, fill them in light. Perfectly shaded pencil crayons, perfectly unimposing. A teacher I had then, Jaleh, came up behind me once with a dark blue pencil and drew sharp, stark, LOUD lines on the page, and told me to draw braver. You'll never pierce the soul that way, she said.

If I were drawing the day braver, I would have substituted "hey, how are you!" with something that has a little more meaning, that represents all the things I won't put words to, but it doesn't mean they aren't there. Instead I did everything right within the lines. I didn't even wear lipstick.