I want to talk about how I sneaked into my working life, tiny fragments of drawing time. It was literally in the margins of my day, just like now during my lunch break…..15 minutes at lunch, 10 minutes when the cooker was on the stove, 15 minutes before bedtime, etc. 

With my head buried in my sketchbook, all the things locked in my brain would spill out into my notebook and while I kept drawing away, I allowed myself those precious minutes of peace. And with that, my drawing time became my everyday precious time, no disturbances and no nagging from anyone in the family! Win-win! 

The thing is, while I worked in India, those me-moments included stepping out for a cup of chai to chat with a coworker, so we could vent and release and return back to our desks. 

Me-moments became we-moments, and I formed real friendships there and assumed that working environments are that friendly, only to be beaten down by American workplace environments and face the reality of it all. With that, lets look at the US office space for a bit, those interactions are so rare, going out for a walk during your breaks is almost a vintage concept now. It is either go out for a luncheon (the entire hour) or drinks after work (who’s going to pick up our child?) or no interaction at all (the default).

Since chatting over chai became rare to my work life, I ended up being all the more stuck in my cubicle, trying to get by the day when work and life demands seemed to be never ending. 

And so I just began drawing my feelings. With an office pen on printer paper or the Avery Postcards that were lying around. Most of the time, it was with my lunch box on my desk, drawing what I saw immediately. See some images from August 2018 below at a local government office. Notice the ledge that I filled with some pothos to bring me joy!

Note that the drawing was not even with a black pen, just an office blue pen and a green marker to fill in for the leaves. Probably the lowest bar to enter the drawing world.  And with that little drawing, my tight emotions were released and I looked at my postcard with a smile. And somehow, as a deliberate attempt to overcome what seemed like isolation at a workplace, I kept at this drawing habit for which I am ever so grateful to welcome into my life!  Today, it is this very habit that connects me to several of my co-workers, in fact, I led some fun 2 minute sessions that brought many many laughs among my coworkers! 🙂