I am not ashamed to admit that I love to color. I love to blend colors, alternate between colored pencils, chalk and colored pens. I can do it for hours. I saw a friend of mine color in a coloring book designed for adults, or skilled children, a couple of years ago when adult coloring books became popular. Oblivious to it’s theraputic affects I teased her. She didn’t care. She kept on coloring. A few months later, at another friends house, I noticed she too like to color. She had a shelf full of these adult coloring books for her and her husband and another shelf of kid coloring books for her kids. They also had a mass collection of gel pens and other coloring mechanisms for coloring. It put a smile on my face and I couldn’t help but wonder why? When my friend invited us (my family and I) to color with them at the dinner table, my older kids took to the idea of coloring these very detailed and complicated patterns with joy.
I looked across the dinner table and saw adults, teenagers and little kids peacefully coloring; concentrating so deeply on the pages and the details.
Why was this such a big deal to them? I sat down, picked a page with humming birds, selected a few metallic pens and began to color. It was a bit overwhelming at first trying to figure out what color to use. What color are humming birds anyways? Then I thought how kids pick whatever color they want to use to color something even if it isn’t “natural” or “realistic” and that too put a smile on my face. How freeing to just color however I want with whatever color I want. I selected a random gel pens and I started. Then, I couldn’t stop.
There was something so peaceful and so self competitive about coloring the fun patterns and designs of my birds. It took me a couple hours to finish my page because I couldn’t stop or rather I wouldn’t stop. I was hooked. It didn’t matter that my hand was cramped and stiff after I was done. No, it didn’t matter that by the end, my vision was blurry, my head ached slightly and my back was stiff like my hand, because look what I did! Look what I did! This put a smile on my face too. I felt so good, so calm, so satisfied.
by Canela Ajena
This year, this week during stay-at-home month I continue with this Dream Catcher. I also have a few more unfinished ones in another book given by my kids as a gift on my birthday I will work on completing too.
(During Stay-At-Home)
by Canela Ajena
Canela Ajena 