If you'd told me yesterday that today I would draw a self portrait, I would have told you that I had no intention of drawing any representation of myself in this project, ever. But that, of course, was yesterday.
I was didn't feel very well today, and did a whole lot of feverish sleeping. I kept jolting into consciousness with thoughts of my to-do list, but a spinning head kept me from doing very much very well. This might have been the physical reaction to over three months of working 8:30 to midnight most nights, to working six days a week, if not more.... and then finally quitting my job yesterday.
If someone new had seen me today, would they think I was lazy? Did it matter how much and how hard I have worked in the past few months, when it has come to so little? Would it help if I told them that in that same time, I had run a marathon? Am I only superhuman if I am superhuman every single day?
I also thought fitfully about this project, and my relationship with drawing over the course of my lifetime (not something I'll delve into today.) I remember I invented a cartoon character called Super Nicky, and then wrote stories about him for my younger sister. I drew a rough remembrance of him. I think it was my own youthful geekiness, in combination with my inability to draw the muscled figures of comic books, that made my hero so scrawny. The person I felt compelled to add to today's drawing strangely became myself, about to go for a run. She eyes Super Nicky with affectionate (sisterly?) amusement. She looks as though she might have a better idea what a super hero is.
I wish she would tell me.
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