Primordial Soup

THE expression a born __________ always gets people excited. She´s a born actress. The expression implies natural talent, genius, effortless savoir faire, and a phenomenal secret. The secret starts as a pebble in the walking shoe, a nag that turns shrike in short order. How do these naturals do it? Do I have to be unbalanced by defect like a George Malley or a John Nash character? Does an obscure, virtually inaccessible part of the genius brain activate at the brink of complete annihilation?

For me, drawing is the closest I've ever come to having a phenomenal secret. Ever since I could hold a crayon I have attempted to create some kind of concrete existence for the apparitions that appear out of the murk and mist of imagination. Starting with my immediate family and later including friends and classmates, questions surfaced: who drew that? Did you copy that from somewhere? Strangely enough, I always felt as if it wasn't exactly me who made the drawings in question, that I was acting only as a low voltage wire between what really created it and the paper upon which it manifest. As time went on, my scribbles were met with equal parts delight and derision in most cases, because where at first there was really no decision to draw made on my part, later I debased the secret through decision and used it to discriminate between those that could and could not, and later yet as a secret weapon to aid amorous conquest. There was scant a girl who could resist a flattering likeness Bic-penned on the chipboard backing of her spiral notebook.

It wasn't until I encountered my first architectural floor plan that I became obsessive and religious with drawing. No, I don't dare say that, it's not religious for me, but finally it seemed I didn't have to whore any more. Yes, yes--the apparent delight I saw in the eyes of some was worth it on one level, a high level in fact, but my inner monkey, my baser self was always a link in the delivery chain of these deliberate images.