A girl sat at her desk wondering what to draw. She could feel her urge to draw building, but none of her or her friend’s measly ideas were good enough. She took a deep breath and let her thoughts consume her as she leaned back in her comfiest chair.

As her worries built, she looked out her window. The overcast sky clashed with the cookie-cutter houses and perfect lawns across the street. She inhaled deeply and imagined the sweet scent after a rain. Just as she could almost taste it, the low rumble of thunder broke her concentration and flooded her senses with the dull, musky air of her room.

She sighed and leaned forward. Already her intense passion to draw was fading, as it usually did when she had little inspiration. Instead of an itchy need to put her ideas onto paper, it shrank down to a beckoning want. The more intense her passion was, the less room there was for error of any kind. Soon it would be small enough that even the oddest idea would work.

The girl glanced down at her pudgy fingers. She could create such beautiful things with them. She noted that the more calloused her red fingertips became, the less she worried about little things in life. Hopefully her fingers would hurt less tomorrow, and she could play for hours again, like she did today. She remembered with an inaudible chuckle when she first learned to play guitar, and that almost all of her knowledge from back then was lost.

She picked up her mother’s old guitar and strummed her favorite chord. Most of the songs the girl “composed” were her life events or worries sung to a string of her favorite three chords. It sounded badly when she sang and played, because she sang without caring about the notes. She sang from her heart, and the guitar made her feel less alone, like a friendly companion helping her to understand her emotions.

The girl had many gifts, but music and was one of her passions. The guitar sang out harmonies as she weaved the melody into the air. She strung up her fears, weaved in her anxiety and expelled her worries almost completely as she sang. Her voice expanded and built with anger, then compressed when she conveyed her sadness. She stretched and bent it like audible taffy, folding it here for low notes, and stretching it there for higher notes. She paused only when her fingers missed a string or her lungs needed to be refilled. It is in these moments filled with passion, even though her voice and the guitar’s pitches may not agree, that she is the most beautiful.

When she was done, unaware of how much time exactly had passed, she lay down the guitar and sighed contentedly. Her urge to draw was completely gone, but she was fine with that. She curled up in her chair and realized it was pouring. She got up, opened her window a crack, and sat back down. She inhaled deeply to relax, and the tantalizing smell of rain wafted over her. Without any worries to plague her, she was finally free.