Colour Me Gone

You might think that the term “adult colouring book” means extensive use of a flesh-coloured Crayola, but you’d be wrong.

What I think is a recent craze has actually been around for a while. My wee sister tells me that she had a grown-up colouring book when her kids were small. She still has it—unfinished, because the kids (now grown) made off with her coloured pencils.

Guess what I gave her for her birthday.

Colouring therapy goes even deeper into my history when I think about it. A Doodle Art poster of butterflies hung in the kitchen when I was a pre-teen; I would occasionally pause to fill in a wing or a flower, as would my sisters and maybe my younger older brother, though I never saw him doing it.

I’ve heard that colouring induces a mindset as close to meditating as one can get without actually meditating—good news for someone like me, who falls asleep when confronted by a lighted candle.

Truth is, I love to colour. It’s easier than writing. Way easier, in fact., though it can facilitate the process by giving me something to do while I mull over plot portents. I get completely lost in my Christmas cards each year. The hard part is the poetry; once the words are formed, the struggle ends and the joy begins—with colour.

It’s the perfect meditation. There are no rules, no time limits, no restrictions. You can even colour outside the lines if you want. How cool is that?

Ter gave me a book for my birthday. I love it, but like dessert, I have to eat my veggies before I can indulge, so I don’t spend as much time at it as I’d like. When I can no longer bear the wait, however, you’ll find me in the zone.