I grew up in
a neighborhood of all boys. My cousin, Sheila, lived three blocks north and my
friend from school was one block south, but she only wanted to play indoors. Ferrell,
my older brother, sometimes allowed me to tag along. But, more often than not,
he would ditch me the first chance he could.
Until I was
old and strong enough to make my own friends, I spent a lot of time alone. My
mother used to tell everyone that I could entertain myself. It might be hours
before she would hear a peep from me. She said, “Like the dog, I came around
when it was supper time.”
What they
did not know is I had a secret stash. It was a stack of 26 coloring books and a
set of 64 Crayola crayons with a built in sharpener. I kept them on the bottom rung of my bookcase
in a neat stack with my favorites hidden at the bottom and the least liked
sitting on top. If friends came over, I could easily draw off the top and not
feel bad about missing out on coloring those pages. The good stuff remained
intact at the bottom.
Lo and
behold, imagine my joy when I saw my first coloring book for adults! I was
hunting around in a gift shop for a baby present two months ago when a set of
magic markers in a Roy G. Biv arrangement caught my eyes. Looking closer, I saw
two coloring books behind the markers. One was a collection of abstracts and
the other animals. Both were intricately sliced
into small shapes ready to be colored by expert hands, not fat children fingers.
I went home in a daze. It was mindboggling that I did not leave with the
treasures. I thought about them overnight. Dreamed really. With Christmas a couple
of days away I justified the purchase and headed back to the store only to find
someone else had bought them.
I got back in the car and drove blindly to Southaven. Now, I was on a
mission to get my mother some coloring books for Christmas. I had taken the
treat off my plate and added it to hers since I was wasting fuel to get the goods.
Also, I had to make a wise decision. My mother deserved a bottom of the stack
coloring book, not a flimsy grocery store top layer one.
After hours
of consulting the internet and flipping through about 15 different books, I
settled on a champ. Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Coloring Book by
Johanna Basford is the Mohammad Ali of coloring books. It has sold over 2
million copies worldwide and is being blamed for the adult coloring book phenomenon.
I handed it
to my mother with the expectancy of great joy. She handed me a package shaped oddly
enough like what I just handed her. We ripped open our packages to find color
markers and the same Secret Garden in our hands. Who was the happier?
No comments:
Post a Comment