On coloring books & life’s struggles
Anyone who works with his/her hands knows that you always put your heart out there, that it expands in a good way, maybe because the happiness quotient is filled just a little bit more.
Ireceived a bunch of coloring books and a set of gel pens earlier this month, a present from Kat. It was totally unexpected and absolutely delightful. Kat is a lawyer. I think lawyers know more than just a thing or two about stress. And that package I held in my hands looked up at me, as if promising that many happy days were up ahead.
The days will not be less busy or magically stress-free, but the coloring books will be a happy respite, a time to recharge from the sum of all that.
It took a few da y s before I found time to get down to it. It was a Sunday, I remember coming out of the water after a swim, and settling into a chair by the long wooden table in the lanai.
Still dripping, I chose a page randomly and colored, feeling young and carefree and happy, the way I probably did every day of my life in elementary when my biggest problem was Malu, the school bully (she who would demand P1or P2 I had daily that I would use to buy Chippy from the canteen).
While I was coloring, I was in grade school all over again, working with my hands, best friends with paper and bright colored pens. In that space, that very moment, all I had to think of was what shade of blue or green to use, and to ensure that I color with strokes in the same direction, within the lines.
The design was spherical, intricate, and beautiful. It was impossible to finish in a few hours. By midnight we stopped (I say “we” because by then there were five of us coloring — Richard, Juliana, our good friends Pia and Sammy). My eyes were a bit strained, my shoulders stiff, but it was a happy kind of tired.
Through the weeks, I’d find myself coloring parts of a page here and there. It did not demand any of my time, but it was there whenever I needed it. It is a liberating and gentle kind of friendship to have with a non-living thing. Rewarding, too, on many different levels. At one point I did wonder if I was just wasting time. What for? What is the purpose of all this? If I color one page, then what? I color the next and the next and when I am done with an entire book, what would I have achieved?
But the intangibles are there. Anyone who works with his/her hands knows that you always put your heart out there, that it expands in a good way, maybe because the happiness quotient is filled just a little bit more. There is something about it that quiets the tired mind, soothes the weary and worried heart.
I met someone a few weeks ago. Chris used to be a flight attendant and she was telling me about this one time during a flight when the plane had to decompress (apparently it means descending rapidly to a certain altitude). It sounds terrifying, it is terrifying. She says she got through that ordeal by focusing on a baby. That made so much sense to me. Whatever you are struggling with at the moment, whatever sadness or worry or stress has enveloped you, when you give yourself the latitude to focus on something else, that Big Bad Wolf as you know it ceases to be so big or so bad.
For me, enjoying coloring books is something like that. It’s so mindless, it frees up so much space within and around you. It is so therapeutic, frayed nerves are calmed. When I color within the lines, when the colors I choose work well together, it can be that one thing right in a day that seems to have gone wrong in so many other ways. And even if I make a mistake, who will scold or reprimand me? In that space, for a few hours, all is within my control. I am in control.
When I inadvertently end up using the wrong color, I just go with it. How can any color be so bad anyway? I will run with it, as Juliana has wisely taught me. Chances are, by the time I’m done, it will work still. In the bigger scheme of things, it all comes together just fine, somehow. How great is that? Isn’t life like that in many ways?
What is the purpose of enjoying coloring books very much? No, it will not solve the problem of hunger or poverty or war. But maybe on the worst of days, it will help keep me together in one piece. Like washing the dishes, or knitting and crocheting, writing or dancing, maybe it affords me that space to breathe, to not struggle with so many thoughts, to be still. For it is only when I am still that things become clear. Only when I quiet my mind that I will understand better. Only when I cease to struggle and huff and puff through a situation does it all fall into place.
Thank you, Atty. Kat, for such a beautiful gift. It keeps on giving.