"Alice Advising (April)"
"Slow down." I'd like to think she says this to me, but it's more likely she's talking either to herself, or to the universe at large. "You've always gotta be doing at least three things at once. Just pick a thing, and do that well." She shakes and head and laughs. "I get it, the world's a busy place, a complicated place. But you'd do better by picking one thing and putting your energy into that."
This goes on for much of the afternoon. The recipient is never clear. "And of the three things you think you have to get done at once, one of them is trying to think of something snarky to say to your ex, and one's watching cat videos. Just be smarter about where you spend your energy." At some point she stops talking, sits up taller, and looks out the window at the cloudy afternoon.
Alice and me, we take turns drawing each other. She's always been my mentor, though she's not really an artist either. No one uses pencils, no one uses charcoal. The only art supplies are leftover pasta, cat fur, used motor oil, and soy sauce that's way past its expiration date. You pick out the least important elements, erase those out of the picture and try and make the stuff that remains that much bolder and prettier.