Zen Tangle
I recently decided I wanted to do cute lettering for my classroom library (I’m redoing my book buckets and making new labels). I’ve always just printed labels on the computer because I am… incompetent at anything cutesie by hand. But my teammate this year did everything hand labeled and it was so nice and colorful and cute in her room… and… I decided I could teach myself some cute lettering this summer and at least fake my way through some hand-labeled tags for next year.
Then, in exploring how to make cute lettering, I discovered (or learned about, I’d heard of it before) zen tangling. It’s basically putting a random collection of patterns together…
This is a zen tangle:
It’s supposed to be meditative because it requires focused concentration, but it is not proscribed… you can do any pattern, and change it any time. And supposedly, it’s supposed to be impossible to do wrong, because… there is no goal… it’s just… doodling. If you make a mistake, just turn it into a new pattern…
I figured it would be good for my perfectionism to do something I couldn’t do wrong.
It might be.
If I could stop being perfectionistic long enough to do it.
I watched a few youtube videos. I put a shit ton of patterns on Pinterest. Then I sat down to try it.
I suck at it.
I don’t know what kind of patterns to make.
Sir was watching me try this tonight and he said, “You don’t have to know, you just doodle…”
I said, “I don’t know how to doodle!”
“Just make some shapes and lines…”
“What kind of shapes and lines?”
“Any kind!”
“But, I don’t know what kind that is!”
Sigh…
So, there was no zen tangling tonight.
I did not find it relaxing.
And my perfectionism, for anyone keeping track, remains firmly intact.
And seriously, I don’t doodle. Not during staff meetings, not when I’m on the phone… I write notes… I might underline or box an important concept… That’s as creative as I get.
Apparenly Sir has never heard of someone who can’t doodle.
I live to provide him with new and novel experiences.
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