As I was going about my life, I started experiencing more and more intrusive thoughts. Not voices, exactly, but ideas that weren't true and that I couldn't stop from repeating themselves on loops. Negative little nothings that crawl up out of the quiet and insert themselves. Gross little shades.

I was palming my forehead at the supermarket and wincing away one of these thoughts when an older woman padded by with her cart. Her dress was long and large and a deep pink, with orange flowers and yellow and white petal patterns and - and - my thoughts had stalled to take in the dress. Not as an object to be considered, but as a sudden transport to soft unexpected colors and gentle patterns that were fun and light and a playful seal that I could put around the thoughts I wanted gone. I took that experience home with me and spent some time building it into a defense against intrusive thoughts - an art series that should be comfortable and true and help your own intrusive thoughts dissipate and pause.