Doodles as Alternate Selves

The first figures did not arrive with biographies.

They arrived as spontaneous doodles: a curved line, an improbable head, an extravagant bow, a pair of wings, and an elephant whose expression seemed unusually open to the world. I had not planned a cast of characters. They simply appeared.

But some drawings refuse to remain drawings.

The longer I looked, the more specific they became. They developed preferences, ambitions, professions, habits, and private histories. One wanted to ring ceremonial bells. Another seemed unable to contain the size of his thoughts. An angel offered hope to others while protecting dreams of her own.

The doodles had begun to acquire lives.

 The Lives Inside the Lines

The elephant was among the first to make his nature known.

He loved people, animals, trees, weather, nearly everything that crossed his path. He was a walking celebration. His generosity required no explanation; he simply had not discovered a convincing reason to withhold affection from the world.

When I placed him beneath glowing lanterns, he looked entirely at home, delighted by beauty as though the festival had been arranged especially for him.

 

The man with the green bow was more private. By day he balanced ledgers. Behind his careful appearance, however, was a precise dream: to ring ceremonial bells and feel their sound move through the air.

In the life he carried inside, he walked through ancient stone halls where bells, geometric patterns, and quiet rituals marked the passage of time.

The ambition was improbable, but not frivolous. It gave his imagined life direction.

 

Orange moved more slowly.

A thoughtful wooden penguin, she considered nearly everything. She noticed what others hurried past and gave questions time to settle. Her stillness was not inactivity. It was a form of attention.

 

 

 

 

While some found his presence frightening the truth was the thinker had so many ideas gathering in his brain his eyes turned red from the churn and great curls formed above his forehead. The lines seemed less like decoration than evidence of ideas gathering, doubling back, and making connections. His outline could not quite contain his mind.

 

 

 

Then there was the angel.

She brought hope wherever she appeared, but she was never intended to exist only for the comfort of others. She had private wishes, unfinished plans, and a future that belonged to her. Generosity and selfhood could exist together.

In the finished scene, she stands beneath a streetlamp overlooking the city, wondering whether anyone below still remembers to look up.

 

The barrister cat intended to conduct himself with dignity.

There were cases to consider, papers to review, and serious proceedings requiring his attention. Yet curiosity was rarely billable, and the world beyond the courtroom kept intruding.

One clear afternoon, the legal papers were set aside. The park was calling, and a red kite climbed into the blue sky.

Some minds cannot be persuaded to remain indoors.

The final figure appeared almost flat, as though he occupied only two dimensions. But a flat beginning did not limit the size of his life. Color, companionship, movement, and the unexpected arrival of blueberry pancakes kept opening the world around him.

No one, after all, is only an outline.

 

 

Once They Had Lives, They Needed a World

As the characters became more distinct, portraits were no longer enough.

They needed places to work, streets to wander, buildings to remember, meals to share, and destinations from which they might be pleasantly diverted.

A traveler boarded the Staten Island Ferry intending to see a famous landmark and ended the day with photographs, conversations, and new acquaintances. Back in her room, maps, museum tickets, notes, and strings connected ideas for which no conventional evidence existed.

 

 

 

In a neighborhood diner, hospitality began with noticing where a newcomer might belong. Breakfast arrived as an enormous stack of blueberry pancakes, more memorable than expected.

Their appearances remained extraordinary, but their lives became familiar.

They worked. They dreamed. They became distracted. They welcomed strangers, remembered places, sought beauty, and went home tired at the end of the day.

Together Again

Near the end of the book, the separate stories converge.

Travelers, dreamers, waitresses, storytellers, solicitors, vendors, angels, and neighbors gather beneath glowing lanterns. By then, each carries a history. Some we have seen; others remain partly unknown.

There is conversation, coffee, laughter, and the sense that these separate lives have always belonged to the same world.

Nothing in the gathering feels incidental. Even the simplest figure has a place in it.

The doodles did not remain drawings.

They became inhabitants.

And somewhere beyond the final page, their ordinary lives continue.

Perhaps an alternate self is not an entirely different person, but a life waiting beside the visible one: a vocation not pursued, a place not visited, a private delight preserved beneath practical obligations.

By Paula Phelan

PiP Art Studio