One afternoon, somewhere between fixing sprinklers and waiting for lunch, I mentioned the children’s book I was writing. Then the game. Then the play. I said it casually, the way you talk about something you’re not ready to defend yet.
The two Germans nodded.
Later, one of them said, “Well, you’re a busy artist.”
It wasn’t a question.
I paused. Not because I disagreed –but because no one had ever said it to me so plainly. We had never talked about jobs. No titles. No explanations. To them, what I was doing was enough evidence.
I didn’t correct them.
In my old life, that word would have felt fraudulent. Something you earned after success, after recognition, after permission from somewhere official. Here, under the Spanish sun, with dirt on my hands and unfinished drafts in my bag, it felt… accurate.
Not aspirational. Not performative. Just factual.
They didn’t ask what I did before. They didn’t want a backstory. They accepted the version of me standing in front of them.
And I realized something quietly unsettling and freeing:
Maybe I’ve been an artist longer than I’ve allowed myself to admit.
