Color My World

Not long ago, I recruited my friend Heather to help me sort and sharpen a large bin full of colored pencils. It's testimony to the kind of friend she is that she didn't say "You're crazy," but simply rolled up her sleeves and got to work. 4 kids X 1 box a year X 12 years = a LOT of pencils. They were all different sizes. The leads kept breaking. It took two hours. Ostensibly, this exercise was on behalf of the children, but I felt a deep sense of personal satisfaction when the task was completed.

Second grade was a game-changer in my day; that was the year we graduated from crayons to colored pencils. I can still see it clearly: seated in the front row of class in a black-and-white checked dress, with a bow in my hair and a gap in my teeth, I gripped that box of pencils until my knuckles were white. Getting your own box was a rite of passage; it meant the grown-ups trusted you with things like fine lines and delicate shading. Colored pencils were liberation and progress.

The world has changed since then. Nowadays, the kindergartners get a package of Sharpies straight off the bat. (What does that tell you about society?) For me though, a colored pencil is still the slender totem of creative possibility. An entire cup full of them, points upward, offers an irresistible urging to do something great. Whatever I can dream, I can draw. And I don't even have to stay inside the lines...