Coloring through quarantine

Checking in here on day 16 of being at home with my family in Connecticut. What am I doing to pass the time, you ask? Coloring. I know that sounds dreadfully boring but for some absurd reason I actually can’t stop. 

This isn’t going to be an inspirational post about the burden of “coloring inside the lines” or about the freedom of choosing your own colors. This is just me trying to work through the mystery of why my mom and I have basically been wasting away at our dining room table coloring for hours on end.

It all started when we ordered some “adult coloring books” and some dual-tip pens off of Amazon in an innocent attempt to keep us occupied at home. First things first, the words “adult coloring book” beg quite a few questions. Was whoever marketed the adult coloring book trying to make it sound more mature to sit your ass down and fill in flower petals and woodland creatures with markers (or worse, colored pencils)? The term also invokes the sense that some X-rated coloring might be taking place. I mean, who knows what goes down in an “adult coloring book.” But to clear it up for all you, it basically just means it's more detailed than your average Dora the Explorer coloring book for tots.

This also means you could call me an advanced colorer. My fine motor skills (when it comes to a dual-tip marker) would totally smoke those of a 4-year-old. Anyways, the coloring books arrive and mom and I naïvely embark on our coloring journey. I start off with this butterfly page (which lowkey took me almost two full days to not even complete) and I quickly realize that these lines are tiny and this is actually pretty intricate stuff, plus now I have a headache. But I can’t stop.

Mom’s got more of a scene going on, which looks a lot more interesting than my mind-numbing butterflies, so I bail on those and find my own garden oasis scene to color in. Still, this all seems pretty low-stakes but you would not imagine the stress coloring can create.

For all the world’s technological advancements, for some reason humanity is really stuck on this one tricky issue that is matching a marker’s packaging to its ink. All things considered, an issue like this is super unimportant. But really, why does my gorgeous, tawny-teak-looking marker come out as orange? The world may never know.

Some colors (we’ve learned the hard way) are just totally off-limits. Take this innocuous orange, which, in reality, is anything but. Mom and I have decided that unless you’re coloring pumpkins (which I actually did in this harvest vibe scene below), steer straight clear of this color. For some reason, it just creates this horrible eye-sore on your near-perfect illustration, and no shade can save it. Speaking of saving your masterpiece, this puke green shade they include in the pack is also a (fairly obvious) bad choice. Mom unfortunately used it to color her acorns (not to mention she also used the aforementioned treacherous orange), tried saving it with a navy blue overlay, and ended up with, well, this:

But let me tell you, the many joys of coloring far outweigh whatever horrible marker colors I’m forced to endure. For starters, it’s incredibly satisfying. It’s not very hard, but it’s still slightly more active than binging a show, since you have to choose your colors and stay inside the lines. In a sad way, you actually even feel productive when you, say, finish coloring in a particularly detailed tree (fist shaking at the heavens for what my life has come to). 

Considering I’ve essentially been spending every waking moment with my mom, coloring is also the ideal quarantine “hang out.” You’re still in the presence of others, totally don’t have to talk (what else is there to say?), and can listen to music and exchange a few words here and there.

I’ve also found coloring to be incredibly meditative. Just like meditation, your mind focuses on one constant action, like breathing or filling in lines with your marker. It takes just enough brain power for your mind not to wander, and you’ll find that time passes in the most unexpectedly soothing way.

So as a break from the screens, or in between your three daily strolls, I encourage everyone to try their hand at coloring. I now recognize that I might be receiving a few “You good?” texts after posting this, but we all pass time in mysterious ways.