This is a fairly obvious flap to open on the Advent Calendar of our “Thanksfulness:” I am the queen of doodlers. This is probably apparent by the way that I write; little snatches of lists and smileys and groceries and comments on every available scrap of paper. Tech Boy despairs of ever truly dragging me into tech; I still have paper address books… filled with defunct addresses and more doodles, calligraphic recordings of the alphabet in my every colored ink pen, ballet gowns and misshappen ballerinas (why? I hate ballet…), roses, libraries, couture, Sphinxes, jellyfish, Airedales. It is a strange space my scribbling mind inhabits. A place out of mind – and deep into my mind.
I just finished a novel wherein the girl drew everything around her in an effort to understand it. I think that’s me, too — lines of poetry, prayers, arguments, indictments, all rendered out in squiggles and swoops and lines. Does it truly give me any understanding of things? I’m not sure, really. But it does connect my hand to my brain and enable my thoughts to flow out of me, like a twisted pensieve in reverse. Difficult phone calls become somehow easier, jagged discussions flow more smoothly with a pen in my hand. Long sermons, grad school lectures…
I am not much of an artist, perhaps. But the scribbling, the drawing, the stamping, the coloring – it’s a freedom, too. The contents of my life, laid out in inky fingerprints on paper – a gift, perhaps only to myself. For this grace of clarity (or the attempt at said), I am grateful.