Eleanor was a famous painter, but she hadn't painted in five years. Her studio was immaculate, covered in dust sheets. The easel stood empty, a ghost of her former talent. She was paralyzed by expectation, unable to produce anything that felt worthy of her reputation.
Her young daughter, Lily, who had only known her mother as 'the lady who sits by the window,' came into the studio one day with a fistful of dandelions.
"Mummy, look," Lily said, her hands yellow with pollen. She smeared a bright, chaotic yellow streak across the clean white canvas.
Eleanor gasped, horrified at the vandalism of the expensive canvas. She rushed to clean it, grabbing a rag soaked in turpentine.
Lily just looked at her with wide, innocent eyes. "Why are you cleaning it? It's pretty."
Eleanor paused. She looked at the bright yellow streak. It was wild, spontaneous, and imperfect. It had joy that her controlled, calculated paintings had never possessed.
She put down the rag. She took a tube of bright, cobalt blue oil paint, squeezed it directly onto the canvas, and plunged her bare hands into the pigment, smearing it violently next to the yellow pollen mark.
The dust sheets came down that day. Eleanor began painting again, not with delicate brushes, but with her hands, using bold, messy colors. She no longer painted masterpieces; she painted life.
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