the impossibility of return

It is as impossible to return to the making of drawings of clouds as it is to return to Garstons Lodge.
On making an attempt, although not in the most conducive frame of mind, I find that I have forgotten how to draw; my skills have departed, my hands and fingers cannot perform the task I have set them. I begin to rub graphite powder into the surface of the paper, but the shape I make is not right, and I cannot find the patience within me to resolve the problem. My heart is simply not in the work.
I had hoped that I would find a way to emerge from the impasse of not being able to draw, by making a return to a subject that I had pursued with a small degree of success. ( I have three drawings remaining that I still feel comfortable with). But one cannot repeat oneself, or at least, I cannot. Perhaps it would be a retrograde step, not a step beyond the morass of self doubt and frustration in which I have become enmired, to attempt once more to draw clouds. Or perhaps I am pursuing an inappropriate method. Perhaps I should take paper, and sketch clouds from observation. Perhaps I do not wish to make drawings of clouds at all; I had just lighted upon making cloud drawings to save myself from the sickening sense of personal failure as an artist, that gnaws insatiably at my self esteem.