Peculiar

 

 

I sometimes prefer my doodles to my writing.

I hold no illusion that they are good but they are different from the writing, which is more expected, more like a relative you love but can only take in small, lethal doses.

I often begin writing by coloring in a doodle.

I used to feel terrible about this.

It seemed very unprofessional, not the sort of a thing a real writer does, color-in like a toddler.

Well, this writer does.

Anyway seems a strange thing to be professional at--writing.

It's what I look at in my old notebooks.

 The play of colors and shapes are more interesting to me than the manic optimism or cutting despair that belongs to journals.

I can only force myself to write a to do list if there is some drawing involved.

Most things on the list are not done, even if they are colored in.

This is the human condition, it seems and I am just a little happier since I accepted this.

This is not a poem.

Please don't think it is a poem about doodles in notebooks, on scripts, in datebooks and post its.

Sometimes I wonder if I could make a career of this doodling?

It seems more likely that I can make a career of being a playwright or telescope designer.

I think careers are for the birds and artists should not try to "have" them.

You'll be "had" if you try too hard.

My husband often shows me the handwriting in his journals--it is perfectly rounded and even, 

unlike my own scribbling which a friend one likened to the EKG of someone dying.

Sometimes he writes with a fountain pen in green ink.

He shows me his penmanship, I show him my doodles.

We are stuck at the same age,

somewhere between seven and nine.

I think that is part of the reason we've lasted.

We can muster up excitement about anything, morning coffee,  a TV special about Lemurs, the prospect of lunch.

We are becoming more peculiar with age. 

It happens. 

The trick is to perhaps find the precious in the peculiar. 

Otherwise, you could be angry all the time.

And then there would be less time for coloring.