Doodling

a practice

What once came naturally, now feels more challenging. Writing.

Writing this felt like practice on many levels.

I feel a responsibility, sometimes, to crack open old journals. However, I find it excruciatingly boring to re-read what I considered highlights, until I stumble on something I forgot or discover a link from the past to the present.

I imagine one day having a ritual fire ceremony where I burn all my old journals and the like.

Do you hold onto old notebooks and calendars? If so, do you ever look at them?

If you keep a journal, do you ever re-read it?

School was not where I thrived. I received warning notices in Jr. High, mediocre grades, and got into NYU on academic probation. Being a student was the hardest job I ever had.

I love learning but tend to do best visually and experientially and not so much reading dry material that gets repurposed in unnecessarily complicated ways.

I had been studying acting at Circle in the Square through NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and reached a crossroads when the teacher asked us to select one of the seven deadly sins and be it in front of the class.

I’d been with this group for two and a half years, laughing and crying, diving deep into back stories, conflicts and intentions, and how best to live the truth of each character. I thought this exercise would probably be useful, but I did not trust this group (or teacher) enough to live into lust or gluttony, regardless of the potential benefits to my craft.

I opted, instead, to balance all the body-centric work with more cerebral stimulation. The second semester of my junior year, I took Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism, Existentialism, and a graduate class in Freud. It was, in a word, unexpected!

I was excited about these classes, always curious about the mysteries of the mind as seen through various lenses and practices. What would I discover about myself and the world? Would I recall the stories from the depth of my being? Or would their freshness touch an ancient yearning? I could almost read Sisyphus’ mind as he pushed the boulder into stories of colorful deities and their powerful presence. I fully expected to have an awakening.

Ah, expectations!

The reality was more sepia than technicolor.

Imagine hearing stories of magical worlds with characters that are part human, part elephant (for example) and being bored to tears. Rather than sparking my imagination, I was forced to cope.

Sitting dutifully in my hard seat with regulation wooden desk, feeling the effort of keeping my eyeballs open and focused, I found doodling. When I doodled, I could be more present. Pen to paper, writing words or following the curves of my creativity, I was there. (I used this practice in all my other philosophy classes as well).

I created my own portal into these stories.

Old notebooks and calendars are like journals; they tell a bit of your story back to you. Sometimes it’s difficult to recognize the narrator, other times I go right back to the sensory experience of the time.

Recently, I took out my notebook from that Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism class and was as amused by the doodles as I was by the content of the pages, as they revealed my path like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie.

I took a photograph of one of the notebook doodles and showed it to my amazing tattoo artist; her eyes lit up. Any ideas I had when I walked in the door went out the window. We played with the image on my arm and found the perfect portion, size, and placement. She applied it with a cosmic, smoky feel that moves through timelines and whispers hints from long ago.

I scarcely see the words they frame, but am immediately consumed by their flowing shapes.

(not the best capture – it wraps a bit, and I just took off the wrap, but you get the gist)

These doodles hum. They hold the frequency of the three times – past, present, and future – offering something both timeless and impermanent.