What Color Shall I Use?

I just bought a new coloring book! I'm 58 years old and saw this adult coloring book in my local supermarket.  And if you read adult coloring book as meaning a dirty coloring book, get your mind out of the gutter! This coloring book is for adults.  No ponies and puppies.  No clowns and balloons.  This coloring book is filled with what the publisher calls "happy designs".  It's kind of bohemian, hippie like, love, peace, flower power!  Me! I have heard that coloring can be a very calming activity.  And it is.

Think back to your days of coloring books! Don't you remember when you finally got good at it? When you didn't go outside the lines? I do.  It was a big deal.  And even crayons, though mostly we had a small pack of about six crayons, we learned to combine colors to make other colors and yes, there were times we got the huge box of crayons with what seemed like an endless amount of colors and crayons, with a crayon sharpener built right into the box.  That was my modern technology.  And paper dolls, they went from me needing my mom to cut them out for me, cause I would always mess them up, to punch out paper dolls, which if I did too fast, I messed up as well.  You end up learning more than just how to color well or punch out paper dolls, patience, being in the moment.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s and pretty much anytime we went to a store and asked for a coloring book or a new set of paper dolls, we got a yes answer.  Today, I hear so many parents saying no when their children are crying because they want something in a store that caught their eye! Today a little thing a child sees will cost you over $20 and much more.  When I was growing up a coloring book cost ten cents, even five cents.  And paper dolls a bit more expensive but they were way cheaper than getting a new Barbie Doll.  I had one Barbie Doll.  I had 50 paper dolls at times.  And the paper dolls could be something from a movie, book or cartoon, the coloring books as well.  My coloring book cost me $6.00 and came with a set of 8 colored pencils.  Or go modern -- use your computer and download paper dolls to your printer, download uncolored pictures for your child to color.  Even take a picture of your child, change the format so that it is an uncolored picture and they could actually color a picture of their own face, their house, their dog or cat! As much as you will want to put those pictures on your fridge, your children will look back at those pictures as adults and remember Buddy, the silly puppy who always bit your shoelaces, Crystal, the kitten who curled up next to them when they were watching TV or just that silly face they made when they were coloring!

So yes I just bought a coloring book and it is very relaxing! It is something to do to take you away from where you are at the moment.  I actually want to lay on the floor with my legs dangling above my head, my tongue twisted out of my mouth to the side, and making that big decision, what colors shall I use! And yes sometimes I still make mistakes and color outside the lines! When I was a child I would rip those pages out of the book and start over.  Now I use the mistake to change my picture.  Coloring outside the lines is actually more fun!  Cause in life don't you want to be the one who colors outside the lines? I do!

A simple coloring book was something I would have for months, maybe got a new one, but kept the old one to go back to another day.  The Flintstones, Bugs Bunny and all the Looney Tunes characters, a step into a fantasy world that could last five minutes or an hour and though I didn't know it when i was six years old I was quiet and in a peaceful state of mind.  As an adult we look for so many things to give us quiet and peace of mind.  Yoga and exercise, crafts and hobbies, but how many of us have gone back to just coloring a page in a book.  I have no children, but many nieces and nephews, and the older ones I do remember being asked to sit and color with them.  I remember their sweet little faces looking at my picture and comparing.  I could have colored just like them and just scribbled like a three year old but I think just like my mom colored better than I did, it was something you wanted to learn how to do, were proud of when you mastered it, when your pictures finally came out as good as your mom's.  Today I ask my young nieces and nephews how to use my iPhone???? And I considered myself to have a great knowledge of computers.  Ten years ago yes I did.  Today, no.  In one day things change and I am lost -- Facebook or my email, my cell phone, my computer and the remote and cable TV.  Sometimes I ask how do I turn my TV on?!  They changed the format, it's been updated! Too fast.

My new coloring book is modern, but coloring in a coloring book is something from my yesteryear.  I wonder how many kids today think of coloring in a coloring book as their yesteryear.  I see one year old babies knowing how to hold a cell phone up to their ear! They push buttons and pictures appear on the screen.  What is going on in a ten year old's mind as their old toys or hobbies? Not coloring books, but the old model cell phone they had to use cause the new update was too expensive and they had to wait for a special occasion.  But maybe with these new "adult" coloring books, and children seeing their parents sit for an hour and color a picture will make them want to do so too!  Bring them out of the moment, out of the most updated modern electronic of today.  We've had snowstorms, hurricanes and summer heat related blackouts.  In my day we colored.  Today? No coloring books.

My coloring book has grounded me since I bought it!  I find myself lost in a quiet peaceful picture, the biggest decision in my mind, what color shall I use?