How I Draw on Public Transport

Stuff my toast and marmite in my mouth, bolt down a bucket-sized coffee.  Cram my drawings into a card backed pad.  Wedge the pad into a big envelope.  Put the envelope in a thick plastic bag.  Put the bag in my rucksack.  Grab my pencil case, and flail for the train as if chased by rabid wolverines, still chewing toast and forgetting my lunch half the time.

When on the train, slide my pad out of the envelope, making me quick on the draw.  Shuffle to roughly my usual place, while busy people do that peculiar 'mustn't-make-physical-contact-with-strangers' foxtrot.  Accept that sometimes the train is bumpy, that people will push past me, or jog me as they fish in their bags during the archaeological dig for their phone.  It is not intentional.  

If I don't want people to talk to me, put in some earphones... don't have to turn the music on, and sometimes I hear what others are saying about my drawing.  I won't be tempted to give the game away by turning to say something.

Some of the ticket inspectors recognise me, know I have a season ticket, nod my way, leave me to draw.  Some shout - they would be prepared to stand and wait until ice-cream became a viable foodstuff in hell, just to get all tickets stamped. Some conductors stop and fill me in on the traffic at our destination, cracking jokes about the slalom buses.  I laugh, wallow in it a little, because fuck knows not everyone is that quick to smile in the mornings.  

Most of the time no-one will talk to me.  Peak time commuters are in a hurry, and I should know many of them are very important, in a 'prop up your dog-eared pads of paper quietly' way.  Peak-timers often try to pretend they are not looking and rarely ask questions.  Catching them looking is a mischievous game.  Almost as much fun as looking at them while drawing as if they were being drawn.  Occasionally I will suddenly find someone staring from between the seat-backs.  Sometimes that's not a good sign.

Off-peak and graveyard shift commuters are different; join them and know your unimportance to the network.  Engineering works back this up, making it a timetable with legroom allowing for chat.  I accept that some folks think I am weird, grown somewhere special. I study brain cells for a living.  Worth it to see their faces if I tell them I grow neurons in jars and turn sliced brains blue.  Now and then, someone will have a job so fantastic that makes mine seem utterly pedestrian and vanilla-flavoured.  Humbles me a little because I am still just a tetchy, creaky little dork at the end of the day.

Many people have a completely different take on my pictures to my own.  Sometimes, there is a story in this, one that will make me realise how pocket-sized my universe is, how enormous the world outside the safety glass window can be.  Their families might live in places I've never heard of, or they may fill me in on all the films I never get to watching.  They may have hobbies so different to mine that, on rare occasions; I might have to ask them to draw a diagram.  We might exchange recipes or gardening tips.  Or others just think I am a fruit-loop. Not entirely wrong tho.

More often than not, no-one is looking at me.  But if I am distracted I may see people watching.  I learn the strategies off-peak'ers use to try and see my drawing past the sheet preventing smudges.  Oh I can have some hilarity with my fellow citizens of 'non-standard working hours'...  

...Sometimes train inhabitants comically peer over a book or paper.  I peek back over my pad in an obvious fashion.  Some are furtive, trying to take a clandestine peep.  I beam cheerfully at the shy - because sometimes I feel timid too, and it is oddly pleasant to share my strange little world sometimes...

...Or if they look frosty and aloof, I try wildly looking up from my art frequently and gazing around.  Just to see what happens.   Some enjoy an exaggerated slapstick game of staring cat-and-mouse, but take note would-be train drawers - beware those who just want to flirt...  

...Disapproving travellers may tut in my direction (shame on me to waste life drawing when I could be sucking my teeth at others? ':I)  I do make sure to get out my most risqué sketch at this point and ensure they catch a glance...  

So slide my pad back into its many layers of covering and flump off the train with my season ticket clamped between my teeth, as if I am hanging on to the last bar of chocolate on earth.  Smile at the inspector at the barrier as I flail my graphite smudged ticket.  Shuffle to my bus-stop while avoiding the brightly-coated fake smiles that want to know if I'm happy with my ISP, need to save money on my gas bill, or would like to commit to charity direct debits instantaneously right now.

If I'm lucky I'll get my favourite bus driver.  He thinks I may be autistic, and he might be right - I take it as a compliment.  He has a vicious sneer that could smelt metal, but in another way he is like a ray of tree-filtered morning sunlight.  Every day for 5 years I have said hello, & thank you.   Because on his bus, nothing else matters.  It doesn't matter that I stabbed myself in the face with mascara this morning.  Or that I'm in a ridiculous job and wince when he asks about it because the future is terrifying. He will forgive the odd day when I'm 10p short on change, and if my fare-card runs out he will wink and let me on for free, before snarling like an angry pitbull at the taxis.  He'll even open the doors so I can clamber on as he pulls off outside the post office on the late day when I really need it.

In the unlikely event I arrive early to work, there is an expansive Indian bean tree not far past my stop, and I could do much worse than take-away coffee and a moment more sketching under it in good weather.  

On a fantastic day, I will arrive to work having learned about someone's family across the world, played drawing cat & mouse, and unearthed city history from a conductor who missed their calling as a comedian. All the worlds petrol money and car tax can't buy it.