the way the colored pencils smell when you sharpen them. remembering being that age, making mistakes, thinking it was the end of the world… and then being so gentle with a student today when they messed up their linocut. what if that gentleness could turn inward? I catch myself wanting to 'fix' my younger self, rewrite the narrative. But the cracks are where the light gets in, right? Maybe the gentleness is for the current me, who still flinches at perceived failures.