Notes from a Time Traveller by Elke Stevens

There was a time when I breathed in colours like air. Art was not a hobby. It was a heartbeat.
A language the world could not decipher, but my soul spoke fluently.

And yet, the voices came. Sharp as chalk on slate. Teachers with their red pens and cold smiles.
“This is not enough.” “This is not proper.” Words that carved themselves into the soft bark of my becoming.

So now, on days when the bees in my head hum too loudly, when their wings beat against the hive of old shame, I freeze. The brush grows heavy in my hand. The page becomes a witness I cannot trust.

Sometimes, my fingers hover over the canvas, and even that feels like poetry, skin grazing texture like a lover’s breath. But then the ghosts arrive, and my fingers turn to ice.

The whispers return:
Who do you think you are?

And yet, beneath the frost, something lives. The air and beat of colour, the promise of shape. Waiting like seeds beneath winter soil, patient for the thaw.

So today, perhaps I will not paint a masterpiece. Perhaps I will only let pigment kiss the paper,
just enough to remind the world, and myself, that the art was never the problem.
The shame was. And I am done carrying it.

“If your hands freeze, know this: the bees will quiet, the frost will melt, and your colours will wait as long as they must.”

Bees Buz, And So Will I

To “thaw” in this context refers to the gentle process of moving from a state of emotional numbness or creative paralysis—where self-doubt and past criticism have frozen one’s ability to create—toward allowing oneself warmth, openness, and the possibility of expression again. It symbolises letting the ice of shame or fear melt away, making space for creativity to flow, even if only in small, tentative ways.

Elke T.B. Stevens 02/08/2025