A woman e-mailed me over the weekend and said she loved my photos this weekend, and thought she might paint a flower, even though she very quickly described herself as a “non-creative, a non-artist, a non-writer, a non-photographer. I am nothing, really,” she added, and how I hated that message and felt it’s pain, and understood how we break people down, make them feel small, take all of the creativity and seize it for ourselves, fail in our duty to encourage others, to encourage ourselves, and drain this sense of confidence and hope from other people. You are no different than me, I said. There is no such thing as a non-creative, a non-artist, a non-writer. There are people who choose to do these things, and people who do not, or do not yet do them.

The creative spark is in each of us. Do not let anyone tell you, I said, that writers are special, different, above you, apart from you. That artists are born with genius and you are not. I did not take a photo in my life, I said, until I was 58 years old, and I have much to learn yet, but nobody will tell me that I am not a photographer, cannot be one, that is something only they can do, if you take their classes, follow their rules, wait for their blessings. Do not speak ill of your life and your gifts. Encourage yourself, I told her, if noone around you will do it or can do it. Paint your picture, and you are an artist. Take your photo and you are a photographer. Write your story and you are a writer. No one else ever gets to tell you what you are. What you are not. That is the sacred gift you have been given.