Just keep drawing
A pile of sketchpads and a closer friendship
This newsletter: desert life, drawing as ritual, and thin vs. thick desires.
Whaaaat’s up, Traipser! Dakota here with Traipsing About, my no-AI-slop newsletter exploring living an intentional life while reclaiming creativity as an adult, all spiced with experiences from overland travel.
Our roadtrip continues! At the moment, we’re kicking around the Arizona desert while totally loving the cacti-infused views, awesome hikes/rides and mid-70s daily temps. After decades of snowy winters, this is a reminder to listen to our elders—snow birding kicks ass.
In case you missed it: Last time I wrote about getting my surf on in San Diego (aka flailing) while we’re out for round two of Traipsing About.
A stack of sketchpads
Five years ago, Beethoven accidentally started a daily ritual between me and my college roommate. Not the symphonies; a surly doodle of the composer plus a spontaneous text kicked it off.
At the time, I was journaling daily. I’d scribble the day’s snippets, Italian words I’d learned, maybe a musical concept I was toying with.
On a whim one evening, I sketched Beethoven and texted a pic to Eric, co-conspirator in many a fine adventure. He texted back a doodle of his own.
The next day, I sent another. So did he.
A ritual was born.
Just keep drawing
A half decade later, through work, travel, sickness, and assorted life complications, we’ve pinged one another with the day’s drawing. Sometimes they’re journal-y, a thing we did that day. Or sometimes they’re goofy, a play on words from a song or something we read.
We revisit old jokes, concoct new ones to crack each other up. We also share moments of joy and pain in our lives. Often we acknowledge receipt simply with a thumbs up, haha or heart; sometimes, it kicks off a quick text exchange or spurs a phone call.
Always, they’re a lens into a life of someone that I love dearly, a guy I don’t see nearly often enough thanks to living in different cities.
We don’t draw every day—sick kids for Eric or a trip for one of us might derail things. Eric has sent many drawings after midnight, whereas my willpower is exhausted around 11 p.m. (Similar to when we worked late on college projects.) Still, most days of the month, we’re sketching a memory from the day and sharing it with one another.
We only miss a handful of drawings each year; a pile of full notebooks is the proof.
“Routine, done for long enough and done sincerely enough, becomes more than routine. It becomes ritual—it becomes sanctified and holy.” ― Ryan Holiday, Stillness Is the Key
It’s often the first way we share major personal news with each other. Eric has kids, a rocking social calendar, and a busy career, so a phone call is tough to fit in. Still, I feel more connected to him now than I have since leaving Portland years ago.
Learning to draw
Eric is an engineer by trade, and also long-time artist. I get his texts and just marvel at his drawing chops.
I, on the other hand, couldn’t draw a poodle’s mullet when I started, and still struggle with the poodle. I was at the stick-figure level where most people freeze, around 10 years old. (It’s when our inner critic shows up, ugh.)
Vanishing points and two-point perspective, what dat? Proper dimensions for portraits and locations of ears? Alchemy.
Slowly but surely, through trial and error, I’ve imbibed enough to competently come up with a concept—half the fun for me—and then put pencil or pen to paper.
Are they good, pristine, went-to-art-school drawings? *Belly laugh*
And that’s the point. I don’t want to invest tons of time and effort into this. I’m too intense about activities already, so this is an opportunity to grasp it loosely. (Says the guy doing them daily...)
In fact, usually I aim to do them in less than 10 minutes, to not be perfect, to never crumple up failures. One take, snap text PING. Done. I’ve even switched to pen instead of pencil so that I commit to lines and can’t erase.
Ok, fine, not always ten minute drawings. One month, I only drew portraits of musicians, studying portraiture and spending a solid chunk of time on each. It’s a testament to our friendship that Eric didn’t block my number after yet another wigged composer portrait.
I’ve drawn in our house, overlooking mountain ranges in our former Sprinter van and saguaros in the Airstream, and on a floating dock in the middle of an alpine lake during a bikepacking trip. I’ve dragged myself to the notebook when I had covid, when I was so tired my eyes hurt, and when we had guests in town.
However, Eric and I also give ourselves a complete pass to skip a day, zero worries. This isn’t a streak, a calendar of X’s or an ego play of “I draw EVERY day.” Nothing would sap the fun quicker than making it a have to versus a want to.
In fact, the exercise isn’t about the drawing. Without Eric, I would have for suuuure stopped years ago. It’s about the connection with my dear friend.
In my calendar, I’ve got a yearly anniversary reminder about drawing. Each year, I ping Eric to make sure this is a joy to continue, not a burden to bear.
He just reupped for another year, so off we go. Here’s to making it to a decade of daily drawings, my friend.
Thick vs. thin desires
The essay Thin Desires Are Eating Your Life put in words what I’ve been pursuing since leaving social media seven years ago. (Because it was eating my life!)
In short:
A thick desire is one that changes you in the process of pursuing it.
A thin desire is one that doesn’t.
The entire essay spoke to me, including this excerpt:
Thick desires are inconvenient. They take years to cultivate and can’t be satisfied on demand.
The desire to master a craft, to read slowly, to be embedded in a genuine community, to understand your place in some tradition larger than yourself: these desires are effortful to acquire and impossible to fully gratify.
They embed you in webs of obligation and reciprocity. They make you dependent on specific people and places. From the perspective of a frictionless global marketplace, all of this is pure inefficiency.
But I’ve started to suspect that the thick life might be worth pursuing anyway, on its own terms, without needing to become a movement.
How can you take one tiny step today to unchain yourself from a thin desire?
This Traipsing About newsletter is heading over the hill to the next campground.
But first, a quote about friendships from David Whyte’s Consolations:
Friendship is a mirror to presence and a testament to forgiveness. Friendship not only helps us see ourselves through another's eyes, but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn.
A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs, when we are under the strange illusion we do not need them. An undercurrent of real friendship is a blessing exactly because its elemental form is rediscovered again and again through understanding and mercy.
All friendships of any length are based on a continued, mutual forgiveness. Without tolerance and mercy, all friendships die.
Onward,
Dakota
The thick vs thin desires framwork is so clarifying. I've been trying to articulate why certain routines feel draining versus energizing, and that distinction nails it. The fact thatyou guys give yourselves full permission to skip without guilt probably paradoxically keeps the ritual going.
Just the balm my inbox needed. Thanks, Dakota!