A Portrait of Australia

Recently, I made a new friend. Her name is Courtney, and she looks after two kids in a suburb called St. Ives, about 15 minutes from where I am. We have a lot in common. We're both graduates of universities in the United States, we're both 23, we both have tattoos and nose piercings. We both enjoy bad jokes and late nights and good deals. We're both artists.

She, in the more traditional sense. Courtney studied art at Oregon State University, and while she has a shockingly wide range of talent, she has a preference for portraits. I student Rhetoric, and I while I can barely draw a stick figure, I write for my life. One of the first times Courtney and I spent time together, we discussed our lack of inspiration since being in Australia and the subsequent disappointment that we aren't as saturated in our respective creativities as we would like to be. I suggested we keep each other accountable to either write or draw every day, no matter what.

We decided, after talking it over and squealing (as girls often do over lattes), to collaborate. The project is called A Portrait of Australia, and it's a partnership of our talents. As often as possible, we pick a coffee shop, we sit, we people watch, and we pick someone. She sketches and I describe, in separate journals that we'll later combine. When we're finished, we trade and check out what the other is accomplishing. Guys, it's awesome. We got so excited that we immediately went out and bought new journals/sketch books specifically for this. So far we've only had opportunities to try our hand at it twice, but it's pretty cool. To see the difference in our talents, the ways in which our minds see the world and translate it onto paper, how we are somehow so alike and still so different, is astonishing.

I am really thankful for this friendship. This girl, who reminded me that being a free-spirit isn't so much what other people see in you but what you know exists in you. Alongside the gift I recently got from Shelbie, a second new journal, and an app that tracks my sleep schedule, I've become alive in my words again. I got up at 5:30 this morning specifically so I'd have time to write, and I am so excited to do it again tomorrow.

Sometimes, when you have a gift, it seems heavy. But all it takes is one moment, one person, one idea, to release that gift into lightness, and your entire perspective changes. In spite of the every day stress of life, of being a nanny, of being far from my family, there is a definite lightness of being. Praise the One in Existence for the gifts He has given me, and for the provisions He has made for me to flourish within them.

This is Courtney.

This is how she sees me.

Writers are typically neither as photogenic nor pretty as portrait-ers.