A Year in Squiggles

T’was the night before Christmas, and in my bright kitchen,

I sat at my table, a scribblin’ and skitchin’.

I wrapped up the skitchin’ (or rather, sketching) around midnight, and eight hours later,  my kids (aged 9 and 13) discovered this under the tree:

So begins my  new annual tradition of tracking their year in doodles.

It started with a stick figure . . .

I’ve been committing our domestic history to line drawings for a while now.

Several years ago, as a self-prescribed act of mental health, I started rounding off my day by doodling an event or incident, major or — more often —  minor that had made me viscerally grateful or happy.  The process and the product offered a whimsical antidote to my tendency to brood, and to fixate on the negative.

Last year, I extended the experiment by designating pages in my journal for my kids and  husband, and doodling a development in their lives each week, on Sunday mornings.

These sketches provided the raw material for my year-end cards. (I gave my husband his on his birthday, which falls in mid December.)

What I learned . . .

The cards sparked laughter and nostalgia at our Christmas breakfast table, as the kids took turns being the star of the story.  That’s reason enough to have another go  next year.

Given all the parenting hours I log guiding, correcting, reminding and admonishing, it also felt important, at year end, to let my kids know (and to remind myself) just how way cool I think they are.

But the main reason to repeat the exercise next year is selfish. Reliving the highlights was the ultimate gift-to-me.

For me, parenting can entail a ferocious preoccupation with the now, and far too much time anticipating and navigating the challenges that lie ahead.  Caught up with to do lists, checklists and schedules, I allow happy memories to recede far too quickly. When I look back at old diaries, emails and photographs, I’m shocked at how much of the intensely lived experience I forget — and how quickly I forget it.

I reclaimed some of it by spending a few hours documenting — in stick figures and squiggles — the progress my kids marked over the year in growing into their future selves. I was also able to recognize how much of it was self-initiated, and achieved despite, rather than because of me.

Looking Ahead

Reviewing this year’s experiment with a critical eye, I blush at the emphasis on the big wins, particularly on my son’s card.

Academic and athletic merit badges muscle out the acts of incidental kindness, shared jokes and bursts of ingenuity that give life its texture, colour and meaning, and every day,  its unique stamp.   Next year, I’d like to make room on the page (and in my brain) for the little moments, as well as the big ones.

Also, next year, I’d like to use the expanse of white space to explore  — however obliquely — the key coming of age questions:

•  How has your world — and how have you —  changed this year?
• What aspects of your essence do not change, and remain fundamental and unique across time?

Is that too much to ask of a dozen line drawings?

I’ll find out on the night before next Christmas . . .

Postscript: The 2020 Edition

It may have been an unprecedented year, but even in Corona-confinement, a lot happens in the lives of growing-up-fast kids.  I’m so grateful my daughter asked for a reprise of the year in squiggles, because as I put it together, I realised how much there was to celebrate.