Ah, that great word. That word symbolic of time spent at school doing things that one should not, at the back of the class-room, engrossed in full concentration on the task in hand. The doodle: king of art in all text-books. The doodle: the thing which can make even the dullest of lessons just about bearable! (I said just about: they weren’t always; especially if your pen ran out right at the start of doodling and you had to listen to the tutor talking about the economics of luxury bathroom accessories –)
What happened to doodling? It was so much more than a craze, it was once, truly, a lifestyle: the reason for living, the reason for going to school and fighting through another day. I remember the day I went from doodling nineteen, twenty times a day, to doodling first three times per day, to once. Then not at all. And the terrible thing is that I didn’t miss it for some time. By the time I did miss it I was already in deep with being an adult. It seemed as though my doodling days were well and truly numbered–
Until Jane. She would sit opposite me in the office and she sparked my doodling mind again! Jane was amazing! I mean really amazing: she had doodling down pat. Not only could she do a better doodle than I could ever do while answering customer service enquiries on a whole load of complicated legal issues, but she could be disciplined, able to hide the doodles when the boss walked by. And it was Jane who was to be the catalyst for my new venture in to doodling. It began one lunch-time and it hasn’t stopped since. That’s the way I intend it to stay for as long as I live.
I’m sorry doodling, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I promise I’ll never stop, I’ll never let you down.
