On Doodling
Doodling is always fun - sometimes useful, often not. But utility is unimportant, for there exists no moment that is not enhanced by the taking out of a pen or a pencil and doodling merrily away.
If you are sitting on a bench or up a tree, you should determine to doodle. Perched by a lake, spreadeagled on a pavement, leaning casually against a lamppost - therein lies a wafting and delightful chance for a doodle. Heartbroken, ambivalent, mildly enthused or slightly hungry - yes, it’s true, all excellent states for a doodle.
What I mean to say, indeed to emphasise, is that there exists no time or state of mind which doodling is not appropriate for. It’s why I keep a pen behind my ear and notepad in my back pocket at all times. Sometimes I don’t even use them, but their presence on my person lends me an air of great doodling import, of that I am sure.
“My,” a fellow train passenger might remark as I pass on by, “that fellow had a pen behind his ear - what a distinguished doodler”.
I will smile smugly and slide down into my seat, looking slyly side to side and up and down to check whether anyone else has noticed. “Yes,” I might as well say but do not, “yes.”
There might be a pause at that point as I ponder how to proceed. But then I will pull out my pen and commence on a doodle and all is right with the world. For a doodler is always contented - never not and always so. They will display their abilities carefully, not ostentatiously - absent-minded but clear-sighted, sketching out an outline of a cloud or a broomstick.
Their pursuits are unindulgent and unfettered with purpose or direction - instead they are free to amble and wander, looking under tree stumps for mushrooms, earwigs and lost cats. They can cultivate and fertilise an intense fascination with whatever it is that takes their fancy, whether it is a birch tree or a postbox or a river that runs with the rain. A doodler can enjoy themselves, exploring life in a way that few can match.
A glass, please then, to raise to them, a hymn to sing to doodlers of all manners and persuasions - all those who take time to take time. For the doodler is the master of their moment, undistracted by treacherous notions of forgotten futures or slippery delusions of a past yet to come.