Mostly I write, but sometimes I doodle.

When the words won’t come, or when they will but I can’t bring myself to write them.

When the feelings are so big, so blue, so heavy they remind me of fog so dense even headlights can’t shine through.

When my brain turns into a heaping pile of mashed potatoes and the signals my body needs to write get drowned out by gravy.

When the only word to describe how I’m feeling is “weird.”

These are the moments I doodle.

I almost always draw faces. I almost always start with the eyes.

Then I add more dramatic features: thick eyelashes, dark eyebrows, big mouths, deep wrinkles and worry lines, misshapen ears, a bald head.

Sometimes I love the faces I make. Other times I really don’t.

I spent several days on this one, and it makes me irrationally angry to look at now:

I don’t dislike how it turned out. It’s more like he’s taunting me, with his smirk and his stupid mustache stubble.

Anyway.

I don’t think too much when I draw these faces. That’s partly why I do it. Writing requires me to think, something I can’t do when my brain is a pile of mashed potatoes.

But doodling can and does happen even when my brain is out of commission. Even when I feel weird in my mind and body, I can still draw two eyes, a nose, a mouth—and I do.

And after I do, I look at whatever face I’ve just drawn, I take in its huge pupils and unbelievable nose, and I think, Weird. Not as criticism, just fact. Like all the strangeness I felt before has been transferred from me to this face staring back at me.

I do a quick scan and realize it’s true: I feel better. Less weird. More at peace. 

All the things I usually get out of writing, brought to me this time by doodling.

What do you mostly do? What do you sometimes do?

Comment and let me know.

Oh, and if you’d like to purchase one of my original doodles, email me at dylanmichaeljulian@gmail.com.

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