What's the Point of Coloring?

What’s the point of coloring?

A close friend asked me that last night in response to a fun extra credit assignment her highschool-aged daughter was working on.  Since we didn’t get to follow up on the conversation, I’m not sure how she really meant it, but I was aghast. And still find the question rattling around in my brain the next morning.

What’s the point of coloring?

What’s not the point of coloring?

Coloring is how most of us get introduced to art. It’s our first magical taste of creation (and of wax, for some of us.) We make something, a scribble, a line, a shape, that didn’t exist until that very moment. Something that is unique to us, that no one else could have made.

And the memories that even the sight of a box of crayons evokes.

Coloring and drawing with crayons ties us together through the generations as much as food or music. I remember coloring with my mother  - who is a great colorer and drawer – and my brothers and sister. Coloring books at the dentist’s office, at the kitchen table. Mimeographed sheets from school and the back of any loose paper on those magical times we would go visit my father at work. (He worked in the airport hanger. It was very exciting.)

My Mom as a toddler

Drawing us connected to family that had long since passed on. One of my family’s most treasured possessions is a crumbling, 80 year-old yellowed sketch book from my great-grandfather of his incredible drawings. Among the treasures are a handprint he traced of my mother’s baby hand in 1931 and some crayon drawings of Mickey Mouse he did on the back of cardboard boxes.

What’s the point of coloring?

Another favorite memory is watching my mother paint a Christmas scene, backwards, on the inside of the plate glass window that face the front yard. If we were very lucky, we got to help. It was tricky to a kid. The color you painted on first is the one that showed from the yard, you couldn’t paint over your mistakes.

I remember the excitement of finally getting the 64 box of crayons with the sharpener in the back and the annoyance of having a younger sibling you were forced to share with break one of the crayons. I can feel the shaking motion you have to do to settle the crayons back into their cardboard homes.

And the memories were passed down. I have three children of my own, all close in age, and we spent many, many hours coloring. We learned new techniques together. I taught them how to color a rainbow over with a thick black layer and then scratch to reveal the colors. They taught me how to let go in art, to not worry about getting everything perfect or even recognizable. They taught me, in so many ways in those coloring and art sessions, to just let go and live.

We learned that Rose Art crayons suck. That Crayola is a reliable standby. We learned about soy wax and beeswax candles. We searched for projects to do with the broken ends of crayons that lurked in the bottom of the hundreds of Playtex Chub Wipes boxes that lurked in every corner of the house. We explored colored pencils, watercolor pencils, pastels, metallic crayons, special crayons for black paper, charcoal pencils, and markers of every shape at size. (Rose Art markers and pencils suck, too.) We colored on printer paper, newspaper ends and the insides of brown paper bags (a personal favorite). We had fancy coloring books with fractals and Japanese art and modern Western art and uncoloring books with suggestions and fifty-cent coloring books from the drugstore. No matter how little money their was, or how frazzled I was, or how tired we all were, we could always find something to color with and something to color on.

And yet, no matter how many different media with colored with and on, there is something special about a brand new box of Crayola crayons and plain white paper. Try to stop people from coloring when they can smell that particular crayon smell and see that unmarked paper just laying there. Even now that the kids are teenagers and so busy with life and friends and schoolwork and work, a new box of crayons and some paper laid out on the table will have all of us and pretty much any other adult or child in the vicinity gathered around, laughing, talking, drawing and coloring.

What’s the point of coloring?  Love. Love is the point of coloring.

Burning Desire

Wanting.

Somehow I've talked myself out of wanting. Out of letting myself fully embracing my desires. Not of experiencing it, desire comes and goes many, many times during the course of my day.  But somehow, in attempting to achieve a Buddhist detachment or to avoid attaching significance to my desires, or to avoid the fixiating and daydreaming that I slip into like a soft t-shirt, I don't let this desire take hold. I distance myself from it, make it disappear. Like Pierre, I say "I don't care."

But I do.

Like so many other things I do unconsciously, it's been in an ultimately futile attempt to avoid pain. Wanting, desire, feels like pain; more accurately, it feels like the herald of pain to come. In this mostly unconscious reality in which we live, desire leads to pain - unfulfilled desire hurts, hurts like heartbreak and unfulfilled dreams. Desires that are met hurt too. When reaching goal weight doesn't make us happy. When love brings real world issues of children and money and the other person's baggage and happily ever after takes work. So we apply the old "post hoc" false logic and think that the cause of the pain lies in the desire itself. So I tell myself, I won't want anything strongly. I'll have goals and things I think would be nice, but mostly I'll just float and be happy with what I have. (I'm past the sour grapes response for the most part, though I have my moment. For that, you have to acknowledge that you wanted something in the first place.)

I have a habit of closing myself off when I'm overwhelmed. I know I'm not the only one. My world gets small, physically and emotionally and spiritually. And I don't look at things because I "know" I can't have them, it will just hurt to want and not have. So I won't want.

I am a rock. I am an island.

But it isn't that. Desire isn't where the pain lies. Far be it from me to argue with Buddha, but I think he would say it is in the attachment to the results of desire rather than the feeling itself that pain and suffering lie.  I think, if you don't want things, if you don't allow desire to breathe through you, your world collapses and then you die.

Desire, as I see it, is like breath, like a heartbeat. Desire is where the possibilities for change live. It's where change and growth is born. Pure Desire resides in the realm of undifferentiated possibilities. Some traditions teach the universe as we know it came into being because of the desire of the Divine to know and love itself.  The cosmic I Am.  It's the meaning and we attach to the outcomes of this desire that causes the pain.

So can I find a away to let desire back in? To let myself want things? Everything from banana cream pie and new knee-high boots to a fulfilling job and true love? It does feel thrilling in that beginning part, doesn't it? The first rush of desire. And we are capable of amazing things when fueled by that desire! We'll move mountains for love and cross continents for ambition.  I want to feel that all the time and let it inspire to greatness and move me and make me a better person. I want to learn to get past the fear.

And so I simply chose to. At this moment, I'm inviting all my desire for things and opening up my world. And I'm going to act on my desires without judging the outcome or expectations. Think how happy I could be!

What if I am living up to my potential?

I started talking about this blog with a friend and looking into what amazing things people are doing in the world with the stated intention of spreading the good news, of counteracting the negativity of the evening news, etc.

What I didn't say, because I didn't quite have the words, was that I'm researching these people, reading about them, collecting them, because I am looking for what I want to be when I grow up.  And I'm struggling with the comments on almost every report card from kindergarden on up.  It goes something like "Amy is a very smart girl but she doesn't try hard enough. She is not living up to her potential."

To those very well-meaning (I'm sure, they were all very nice to me) teachers, I kindly say, "Screw you."

To those specific voices, I add the voices of 'society' that every woman hears. (Yes, this is a gender specific thing. I can't begin to speak for men but I welcome the comments.)  We hear from a young age that we can bring home the bacon, fry up in a pan, and, at the same time, never let 'you' forget you're a man. Then there is the whole pressure of reproduction. Childless women are pitied or told they won't really know love until they have a child. Then if we do happen to have children, we're thrust into the mommy wars with women on all sides (I picture the battle like a 20-sided die from Dungeons and Dragons) who are "mommier-than-thou" for many reasons. No matter what you do, you feel like you are doing it wrong. Staying home? Your career is in the toilet. Working? Man, those kids a headed for prison/rehab/prostitution, whatever.

I say "Screw you" to all of that, too. Hey, it's only taken me 14 years of parenting for that.

So how did those teachers know I wasn't living up to my potential? How do I know?  What is my 'potential' and how will we know when I've measure up to it?  I guess it's that age-old question, how do we, as individuals and a society, measure success?

When do we get to really feel this is what I'm supposed to be doing, this is where I'm supposed to be doing it and this is with whom I'm supposed to be?

Ever since I can remember, I've wanted to make the world a better place. Really. I knew that. The big question was how?  It is still the big question.  I'm smart, I know that. Everybody's told me that for as long as I've been around. But 'smart' came to mean 'capable of Really Big Things'. I should Big Things and Change the World in a Big Way.  Flashy. Cure cancer, broker peace, write something that changes things for good.  Obviously, I haven't. So obviously, I haven't lived up to my potential.

I mentioned motherhood a few paragraphs up there, and have faith, there is a connection. For the last 14 years I have been, with their fabulous dad, raising three girls. And that's pretty much it. Got a few degrees on the side, but the kids have been the main focus. And as my very good friend Pam knows, I struggle with that. With that being enough. Is being a stay at home, homeschooling for a bit, mom really living up to you-know-what? Is it enough? I was never going to have kids. I was an 80s lady.  So is that it? Is my main contribution to the world going to be some DNA and cookies? (You can tell by the way I phrased that question that usually my answer is no.)

But what if it was? What if for the last 14 years my contribution to the world was to raise three thoughtful, loving, children and instill in them compassion, the necessity of giving back and recognition of their privilege place in the world and the responsibilities that carries with it? And to learn the lessons, the never-ending, heart-, mind-, and soul-expanding (anyone says body gets smacked) lessons that you learn from parenthood?

What if?

And what if the next thing will show, if I just have faith? Maybe I don't have to hitch my star to someone else's wagon. Maybe I can just look inside, recover my passions - because I do think they have gotten drowned out in a flood of shoulds - and do what moves me, regardless of whether I do it better than anyone else or if it some sort of unique gift. I think, speaking completely personally, I need to focus on being of service rather than gifting the universe with my fabulous potential.  I think the weight of living up to some imaginary potential that was dumped on me 30-odd years ago has been paralyzing me.

Thanks, but no thanks. I'm going to set that burden down and just be me for a while. Potential actualized. I think it might be enough.

On that note, a music video for your enjoyment. Ellis singing "Right on Time."

Right on Time - Ellis

Enjoy.

It gets better. (And so will this blog. I hope.)

I've been wanting to write so many things this past month. So much has inspired me and friends have pointed me towards a multitude of fabulousness.  If I could have the words go directly from my brain onto the screen, I would be a blogging machine.

Part of the problem is that when I go to research something, I get so excited about it that I spend all the time I had set aside to write reading and following the virtual yellow brick road to ever more interesting destinations.

But one this caught my attention this week that  I couldn't ignore. The "It Gets Better" video campaign started by Dan Savage.  Preventing suicide of teens, particularly queer teens, has been an important soapbox of mine. When I meet people who are in the closest, while I respect the many reasons for it, I can't help thinking of how much pain and suffering could be prevented if everybody would just live out loud and proud. Don't hide your differences, whatever they are. You don't know for who you could be an inspiration. You may never know. But just by living out, you could be changing the world for someone.

It gets better.

See the videos

Such a simple statement and yet so powerful to hear it over and over.

By now most of us have heard of the spate of suicides that prompted Dan Savage to start the 'It gets better' movement. It wasn't meant to be a movement. It was just a reaching out.

"I posted something to my blog about Billy Lucas — who might not have even been gay, he wasn't out if he was gay, and not all kids who experience anti-gay bullying are gay — but he was bullied for being gay. ... And I was reading about him and about Justin Aaberg [another teenager who committed suicide after being bullied at school] in Minnesota, and the reaction as an openly gay adult, always, when you read these stories is, 'I wish I could've talked to this kid for five minutes, so I could've told him it gets better,' " Savage told MTV News on Thursday (September 30). "And it occurred to me, when I was really turning over the Billy Lucas case in my mind, that I could talk to these kids. ... I could use social media, I could go on YouTube, I could make a digital video and I could post it, and I could directly address them and tell them, 'It gets better.'

So he did. And then Ellen Degeneris did. And a bunch of other people and it went viral. And hopefully some kids who need to hear it are hearing it. And not just queer kids. This applies to anyone who is getting bullied, anyone who feels different from everyone else around them.

I realize this applies to most of teens in middle school and high school. I think that's the point. I think it's important. As the mom of teens, I marvel at my daughters and how they fit into school in a way I never seemed to. I still struggle with the image of myself I saw in other people's eyes in middle school – a world 30 years and more in the past. I wish I had had video after video of people who had been where I was and come out the other side to tell me – it gets better.

What a wonderful use of social media. A thing that started out small and became a movement at the speed of twitter. Can anyone send me examples of other social movements that depend on the internet like that? I'm fascinated by them.

Kiva.org, where people can make microloans to individual to help get themselves out of poverty – not possible without the internet. Vitta.org is a microlending site that helps put kids through school.

Small acts add up to world-changing power. It gives me hope and adds to my need to find the cause that I am passionate about. Can a person be passionate about 'causes' in general? Do I need to pick an area? Can I be excited about the power of social media and social business to empower people? Is it weird to be excited about the way the most successful ventures are collaborative and user-generated?

Here is a list of some sites to check out:

9 Ways to Do Good With 5 minutes or $25

The Trevor Project - Suicide hotline and prevention for GLBT teens

I know they're out there

I follow a lot of blogs. I have a reader list I can barely keep up with. I watch the Daily Show and the Cobert Report and I splatter my facebook page with stories of things that outrage me.

And I'm getting a little tired of it.

I know there are people making the world a better place right now, in small ways, in big ways and in ways they don't even realize but others around them do.

I've decided I would like to be reading about those people and spreading the word about them. And I can use help.  Feel free to contact me with any story that inspires you; stories that you think should be spread.

I probably won't stop reading the other stuff but I can at least balance it out.

Off to find some inspiration.