By Anne Waldron Neumann
It’s summer: time for hobbies! But have you ever been embarrassed by one of your hobbies — ashamed to tell even close friends, for example?
One American dictionary defines “hobby” as a “pursuit outside one’s regular occupation engaged in especially for relaxation.” Isn’t there something inherently undignified — especially for Americans — in acknowledging pursuits outside one’s regular occupation? We’re not even supposed to relax, so how can we “pursue” relaxation, and isn’t that an oxymoron?
I wouldn’t be ashamed to admit I meditated, implying that I’m so busy I need to confine my relaxation to concentrated, 20-minute daily sessions. Hobbies, on the other hand, might take hours. And they’re nearly all embarrassing.
When you Google “examples of hobbies,” Google asks if you want “hobbies and interests to put on a resume.” Again, how typically American, implying that most hobbies are unsuitable for resumes! Wikipedia lists hundreds of embarrassing ones, dividing them between indoor pursuits (couponing, creative writing — ouch — and crocheting) and outdoor activities (gardening, ghost hunting, graffiti). Did you know that rock balancing (“a performance art, a spectacle, or a devotion” depending on interpretation) is a hobby?
Let’s agree, for the moment though, that hobbies are small things done with the hands — that is, done more or less mindlessly — in the basement, at the dining table, or in a recliner. Recliners suggest another problem with hobbies: they’re often associated with being retired or old, and therefore — though I’m looking for courage to admit I have one — with failing judgment.
After all, it’s a small step from constructing elaborate train sets in the basement to installing them in the back garden. Next step: a model Leaning Tower of Pisa on the front lawn made of plumbing parts.
And here’s another embarrassment: Leaning Towers of Pisa aside, people like me seem reluctant to reveal we have hobbies. But suppose you discover this and make the mistake of asking us about it. We’ll talk your ear off. As English dictionaries stress, hobby was originally short for hobbyhorse, which means, figuratively, a topic of conversation — an obsession — that you trot into every discussion.
One of my hobbyhorses, for example, was computer election fraud. I never felt embarrassed myself by this obsession, but I certainly embarrassed my brother and his wife. I don’t discuss black-box voting much any more. But just ask me who owns the companies that make most of America’s electronic voting machines or why George Bush was so sure Jeb had delivered Florida.
Then what’s my embarrassing hobby? I’ll omit Solitaire (which I view as tidying up cards, engaged in whenever the urge to tidy up the house overwhelms me); Sudoku, another past pass-time; and also Tiny Houses, a current enthusiasm. My newest hobby is — blush — Zentangle®. The official website suggests I use the following copy to describe it:
“The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. ‘Zentangle’ is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.”
More precisely, Zentangle means taking small squares of paper (“tiles”), dividing them into regions using random lines (“strings”), and filling in the regions with intricate, repeated patterns (“tangles”). “Zen” refers to the relaxing or meditative nature of Zentangling, something like coloring mandalas or practicing scales.
The tangles themselves look hard to draw but are broken down into easy steps on various free websites (I like Linda Farmer’s alphabetical list at tanglepatterns.com) and in books. I stopped counting books about Zentangle on Amazon at 100. I included books with titles like “Zen Doodling” or “Alphatangle,” but not books of ready-made Zentangles for you to color.
Given all these books, where has Zentangle been hiding from you? In Hobby Lobby, where (as a Democrat) I’m not supposed to shop — but I do. And here’s why Zentangling embarrasses me especially: I’m a snob. Anything anyone does by shopping at Hobby Lobby — you’d know what I mean if you’d been there, too — I don’t want to admit doing.
Zentangle is also embarrassing because, as Hobby Lobby suggests, it’s both highly commercial and structured. Some of the tangles are so dazzling it’s hard to imagine the human hand could frame them. People who glimpse your designs will marvel, “Did you draw that?” And then you’ll have to admit that it’s actually very easy and that you got it from a book or off the web. And watch their admiration drizzle away.
On the bright side, Zentangle isn’t an expensive hobby, despite all those books. As I said, you can learn it online. And the materials needn’t cost much. Yes, drawing pens can be expensive. And a set of 55 official, 3.5-inch-square Zentangle tiles is $29.95: of course, each tile is “custom die-cut from mould-made, acid-free, 100 percent cotton, heavy-weight fine artists’ paper with a beautiful vellum surface finish … . The cushioned surface … holds a fine line without bleeding; its texture grips your pencil’s graphite as you blend your shading.”
I, on the other hand, use regular ball-point gel pens, tan construction paper, and a paper cutter. On a good day — or is it a bad day? — I can go through a half-dozen tiles. One specialized tool I do find indispensable (though I got mine through Freecycle—another hobby for another day) is a fifteenth-century invention: the tortillion (or blending stump), made of compressed paper for blending shading done with a soft pencil.
So why do I Zentangle despite my shame? Because it’s soothing, and it feels creative. Whether you’ve invented your own tangles or not, you’ve decided which ones to combine and how fine to draw them. Search Google Image for Zentangles to see what I mean.
And what do I do with all those small squares of decorated paper? I could store them in scrapbooks (scrapbooking: another embarrassing hobby!). But I’ve taken to displaying mine around the house: in dollar-store frames, as coasters, or hanging from manzanita branches in my front hall.
Therefore, if you visit my house, my Zentangle addiction will no longer be secret. I feel like the man who confides in the psychiatrist his obsession with collecting pancakes. “Please come visit me!” says the psychiatrist, “I’d love to show you my pancake collection!” I’ll show you mine, and you can tell me about yours.
Suppose, like our 17th-century forebears, we took snuff because we were addicted to sneezing (and we all know what Freud thought sneezing was like): as I said, aren’t all hobbies embarrassing?
Anne Waldron Neumann is the author of “Should You Read Shakespeare?” and teaches creative writing in Princeton.
