This Adult Coloring Thing
Three of the top ten books on Amazon’s best selling list are adult coloring books. I am not sure whether to be appalled at the dumbing down of the American intellect or amused at our attempts to escape the stress our children cause us by immersing ourselves in one of their activities.
Every day bloggers and psychologists and hawkers of adult coloring books on Amazon promote their therapeutic qualities, promising benefits akin to meditation and a mind that is quiet, calm and present.
Ok! Sold! I buy Creative Cats, Color Me Calm, and Let It Go because I can’t decide which theme will be the most calming, probably pushing another couple into the best seller list in my enthusiasm. I am now ready to center myself in my new box of Crayola. Well, maybe not right now. When I can find the time I definitely will.
As it is I scrawl these words in the dim light of the 2 AM moon, awake and dissecting my to-do list filled with first world problems. The irony does not escape me that I write of coloring while my brand new books beside me could be the very remedy to lull me into a relaxing slumber. Still I write and think and 2 AM turns to 3 AM and my troubles have not dissolved in languid locks of mermaid hair and friendly ocean fish. The pictures remain as black and white as the words on this page.
I aspire to the promises of my coloring books, of inner peace and serenity. I also aspire to a completely clutter-free house, a manageable pile of laundry and keeping a grip on my sanity in our crazy extra-curricular calendar.
My aspirations remain stubbornly mostly such. Serenity versus accomplishment locked in mortal combat, coloring books buried in busy-ness.
Yet in the morning I witnessed the power of the coloring book in action!
A 10 year old boy at school got himself into such a state of wound up adolescent agitation that he refused to join his class. He raged tearfully for an hour, unable to listen to reason and compassion from any source, to the point where he was almost hysterical in his frustration with his parents, adults who just ‘weren’t understanding him’ and the world in general. We let him be and he rocked and sobbed until the school counselor brought in a box of scented markers and 2 sheets of ‘mandala’ coloring pages. Quietly she began coloring and then he picked up a marker and joined her. Within moments this child, who had raged against the world so bitterly, was calm and coloring. When he finished the mandala he started, unbidden, on his school work and remained productively at peace the rest of the day.
I came home and gave the mermaid dark flowing locks and set her free in a sea of brightly colored fun fish.
It occurs to me that those in the know, who have this adult coloring thing down to a fine art, do so not as much to color a picture but to use it as a tool to create a quietness – out of which life can happen in a happier and more receptive setting.
