A Small Magnifying Glass On A Mirror

See with what large letters I have written to you with my own hand!

Galatians 6:11

OPHELIA: My lord, I have remembrances of yours
That I have longèd long to re-deliver.
I pray you, now receive them.

HAMLET: No, not I,
I never gave you aught.

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1

Yesterday I was thinking about something
and while I was thinking I absently sketched
some objects in front of me on a book shelf,
a small magnifying glass on a mirror.

It looked like this photograph but less detailed.

I sketched with a plain mechanical pencil.

The finished drawing was very low contrast
but it looked like the objects in front of me
and creating the image gave me the chance
to think about something with a focused mind
even if the finished drawing was too light
to scan and function as an illustration
for whatever I might write about mirrors
and magnifying glasses and what they do.

When I finished I spent a little more time
comparing the very low contrast drawing
to the real magnifying glass and mirror
which in real life contained even more detail
than this photograph but even doing that
I was really thinking about something else
and the drawing and then the comparing stuff
just let me focus on something while thinking.

After a while I had other things to do
and since I knew I’d never use that drawing
to illustrate anything that I might write
I tore that page from my notebook and tossed it.

It was just a drawing I made while thinking.

Today I gathered up all my cheap pencils,
put them in an old box and stored them away.

I’ve got pens and even if I’m just thinking
whatever the hell that means—I’m “just” thinking?—
from now on I’m going to absently sketch
in ink that is dark and reproducible.

Tossing a drawing I made with my own hand
is too much Shakespearean madness for me.

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Mischa Barton, Mischa Barton


This Woman From The Canals Of Mars