earning it back // chaelisa

chapter 9: a whole lot of firsts part two

Walking around the art classroom and taking in the half finished works scattered on paint covered easels, Chaeyoung reminisces about how much things changed in the last month for her. In less than a month, she went from dreading her obligations with summer school to adoring the few but faithful students that came in almost every day to work on their craft with as much love as she has for the arts. In less than a month, she went from being single and settled on her bitterness to waking up with a smile on her face because Lisa texted her good morning and having to go through her days with thousands of butterflies fluttering their wings in her stomach. In less than a month, her life changed from empty to fuller than she ever remembers it being.

She drags her thumb across the thick paint laid over thicker plaster to make the ripples of a river all but come out of the canvas, and she scribbles a few words on a sticky note, places it on the corner of the easel. Chaeyoung figured out a few days ago that it's better to just let the students do whatever they feel like doing, just for the joy of it, and give constructive criticism in little sticky notes – praises are still given in class, in low voices as not to disturb the quiet clinking of brushes in a water mug and shuffling of feet. She's come to love the extra time she spends alone with their art work in the end of each day.

Her job as a teacher worked for her because, as much as it took the skin off her back all year long, it granted her a few weeks off every summer. And for the past two years, that's when she'd live off Chinese takeout, buy new underwear instead of doing her laundry and just paint – start four, five, ten new paintings in a day, trash half of it, paint on her living room floor with daytime TV playing on the background, pump out all the creative juices she held onto for months as she taught color theory and art history, live a hermit life and come out the other side with fifty or more finished paintings that were deemed worthy of seeing the light of day. It left her drained and burned out for months to come, but she lived for it.

When she found a job in Canada and had to move countries in less than three weeks, her art had gotten sidetracked for a little while.

She had settled into her routine of spreading her art supplies all over her apartment, from the kitchen counter to her night stand, never really bothering to clean paint off the floor until she absolutely had to. Overnight, after a very successful Skype interview and good wishes on her start in early September, Chaeyoung found herself packing everything up, selling whatever she could and drinking more coffee than it was healthy for her to stay up and get it all done in time.

So, all the creative energy she had pent up inside her remained inside her while she crashed in cheap hotel rooms and spent her days looking for an apartment to rent, praying she'd find one before the handful of boxed she were bringing found their way to her. It took her two weeks to find her apartment, and six for her to make it look decent. Between teaching high schoolers and slowly working on her own gallery, Chaeyoung found herself painting in whatever spare time she had – after school was out, during weekends, whenever her conscience didn't let her sleep. Suddenly, her creative juices were coming out in a steady stream instead of pouring all at once.

It was a better way to create – slow and steady, rather than one and done – but still, she had been looking forward for her painting sprints that kept her sane in days where even looking at herself in the mirror felt like too much.

Summer school doesn't quite let her do that. Even with having to come to school only three days a week, Chaeyoung has to spend some time on the less fun parts of teaching, which eat her free time away. But looking at one of her student's art and comparing to where they were at only a couple months ago, seeing how much they've grown as artists makes it worth it.

Chaeyoung scribbles down a smiling face under the notes she has for the piece she's been looking at for the last five minutes and peels it from the top of her pad, sticks it to the side of the easel. It's Friday, her last class ended twenty minutes ago and while usually she'd still have students working on their pieces for almost a full hour, they're even more eager for the weekend than she is. But she takes her time to watch every half-finished painting, every sculpture that still looks like a blob of clay, every drawing still in its sketching phase.