Aujourd'hui dans mon garage, je fus saisi de l'intention d'écrire ; ce n'était pas bon, mais c'était là ; quelque interstice mal scellé ou mis à mal par les émotions de ces jours derniers aurait laissé filtrer cette pulsion qui me fit empoigner un gros crayon de charpentier et griffonner sur un bout de carton couvert de sciure, d'un trait, ces mots :

Je m'observe et pense
que se dépose sur nos vies
le voile pâle du temps
Si le monde brûle
et les hommes sont en colère
je n'ai en mon coeur
que de vastes prairies
celles d'autrefois, teintées d'enfance
Couvertes de fleurs sauvages
Libres et effrontées.
Nul ne saurait pourtant
cueillir chaque pâquerettes, chaque trèfle
et le chérir
Je ferme les yeux, referme mes pensées
Allongé dans la mousse
Et la rosée éteint
mon âme passionnée

Voilà une excuse bien facile, mais s'il fallait remonter l'immense pente de la négligence artistique il faudrait pour le moins accepter un pardon à soi-même...

Although there are valuable reasons why I didn't paint in one year and a half, the ones that I was hiding behind for not taking the Inktober challenge were only cowardly ones.
What I used to claim with confident irony if you don't have time : take it ! clearly didn't apply to myself anymore. Days have been packed with so many higher-priority tasks that it became easy to legitimate the fact that I couldn't practice art anymore.
I did come up with a drawing here or there, mainly sketches of live models or landscapes, that I kept hidden for they were so poor compared to what I used to showcase. This, until it became scary as hell to show anything to anyone.
The truth is, by not practicing your drawing, no matter how skilled you might have been in your glory days, this skill will decay. My drawing as become really bad. Nothing my hand seem to remind about composition, movement, expressions, anatomy. The strokes are stiff, the ideas bland.
When I saw my artist friends take that inking challenge by the horns, I started to fancy entering the game as well. All my inner protections stood up immediately : no time. no practice. don't do ink. have work to do. don't like ink. should do a painting instead. challenge's for beginners. no time anyway.
And it was not just a question of beating my ass up to seize a pen. It was a question of admitting, that I have become a beginner. And I want to grow good some day.
So this is it, my tries at Inktober, clumsy and raw. But, there.