In 2015, I wrote a post about my favorite therapy. In it, I wrote about what helps to keep me less twitchy. I’ve kept the therapy because it’s cheap and cheerful and who needs Hallmark if you can doodle?

I made this for my sister-in-law who kept it on her fridge.

I’ve kept adding designs to my Pinterest board and whenever I’m at loose ends or bored–and let’s face it, that’s rare–I go to this board to get me unstuck. All I need is paper and a black gel pen.

Once I was in church and trying to stay awake, so I doodled on the notebook paper in my Bible, inspired by the design on a dress I saw.

It’s worn and tattered, but I don’t feel like throwing it away.

I doodle when I’m in an orientation meeting that I’ve heard before. I doodle when I’m trying to stay awake in church, which is rare. I doodle when I’m at an art party, and sometimes the doodles progress to color.

A wedding card

This happy pile emerged from an art party at Christmas time.

This stiletto is way too fun to make!

Remnants found in my Bible on the backs of church bulletins. The color comes from markers borrowed from the child beside me.

I scribbled this during a members meeting at church.

Now I do simple sketching and watercolors on cards. I make a bunch of the same kind of design because it’s easy but I try to keep updating and improving the designs so that not everyone in my world gets this design for the next three years.

Making cards gives me a viable outlet because I need to go somewhere with what I make, and I can’t coat my walls with all of it. And anyone loves receiving a handmade, unique card, don’t they?

Anyone can do this, and that’s the beauty of it. Buy a pack of cards and envelopes from Joann Fabrics or Michaels with a coupon and a pack of 8 gel pens from Dollar Tree and you’re set. You can supplement with watercolor or colored gel pens or sequin stickers, but less is more, and extras aren’t essential. Turn on a classical music playlist and doodle for thirty minutes and the process will significantly improve your week. If it doesn’t help, talk to me!

In these crazy, chaotic times, creating beauty in whatever form you choose is a decisive, active way to defy the chaos and declare that hate and tragedy and death aren’t the deepest realities. Maybe you don’t doodle but you bake a cake or make soup. Or tend a flowerbed. Or do woodburning. Or shine your windows. Or pot plants and give them away. I don’t care what the medium or mode is, but be sure you create regularly.

Creating is a means to an end: aligning the whole person with what is true, good, and beautiful, and sharing it. The world–and your soul–is starving for beauty. What will you create and share?