Today has been a very long one. 

Orders to the lab. Answering emails. Making decisions. Making plans for exhibitions.  Making progress on work in progress. Paying bills.  Coffee with a friend. Working out.  Making dinner.  Cleaning the sink.  Not doing the dishes and feeling guilty but deciding writing’s more important than dishes.  That’s how my life rolls.  You know how it is. 

In the middle of this busy busy day, I made some time to do a doodle. 

Do you know how marvellous it felt to have that stick in my hand, and draw that wobbly gold line?  It was freedom. It was making a mark without intent.  For no reason except I wanted to, and if felt good to me.  

Whether or not the doodle becomes the basis for any artwork is irrelevant.  What matters is that I enjoyed it.  Scrap that.  I delighted in making those marks.  Delight is a very special thing to feel. 

Usually delight is left to children.  Us grownups have apparently got more important things to do than explore what delights them.  What a miserable way to live. 

I make time for delight. 

Even if it’s only five minutes.  

That five minutes can carry me through a day otherwise consisting of stress and worry and boredom and making other people happy. 

Let’s hear it for delight. 

And for doodles. 

Doodles rule.