In living color : Fostering a love of life

Julia Foster, Reporter

My life is a coloring book. Each page is unique and bold, unparalleled to the next.  This moment is my favorite page. Overwhelmed with opportunity to use colors others wouldn’t dare, I spread myself across the paper.

    Yellow, is the sun resting gently upon my skin. Red burns bright, feeding a fire within me.  Green breathes life, calm and cool into my desperate lungs. Pink strikes beauty, serene and delicate into my moments.  Blue is the current that flows rough through my veins. Orange brings energy, intense and vital for success. Purple reflects patience, fortitude, moderation, indulgence, sufferance, and is anxious to be used.  

  My world is filled with opportunities to blend colors and hues. When we are young we use crayons, and color outside of the lines.  But I am reminded time and time again that crayons are easily breakable and replaceable. However, when your crayon breaks, you didn’t make a mistake because now you have two crayons, double the opportunity.

   And one day you will realize you have been holding your crayons too tight for too long, and all of them have broken.  You have no choice but to leave your crayons behind and pick up some colored pencils.

     Colored pencils allow you to be more precise, but if you make a mistake it can be easily erased. You can manipulate the shading and intensity of your colors. Make them more bright and pigmented than crayons ever could be.  At this point in your creation, there are no limits. Unleash your new found colors on the page any way you like, if you decide over time you don’t like them there is always opportunity to erase.

     Using different mediums adds character to your work, changing the quality and moods.  Layers form personality. Outline the future with the past, saturating your page with uninterrupted color.

     However you choose to design your pages, don’t restrict yourself, your creation has endless possibilities.  Don’t be afraid to mess up, there is always a solution. Occasionally a mistake will be too elaborate be covered up or erased. Sometimes even if you don’t want to, you may have to turn your page.  Starting completely over, fresh and renewed is healthy and necessary sometimes.

      Sometimes we are afraid to use markers because they might bleed through if we’re not careful.  The decisions we make with them could ruin our next page, but maybe one day, our pages will be durable enough to withstand the strongest, most permanent colors.

    Colors are strong and exceptional and peculiar.  You can’t always use the bright ones, or even the colors that are well loved. Not to fret, the eye will be drawn to them naturally as they highlight the goodness in the heart.   As more colors fill my page, I am forged into a more conscious, sophisticated soul.

   Remember, it’s okay to lose a few crayons or miscalculate and color outside the lines.  It’s okay to use a different medium or to want to turn the page. You will get confused and frustrated, but you must find balance. It is not important to use all the colors in your box, but to let the ones you do use directly influence your soul.  Lead a colorful life. When your pages turn, like mine are about to, refuse to lose a chance to spread colors brightly across the fresh, untouched pages.