Coloring Outside the Lines

Sometimes nothing brings joy the way a blank piece of paper does, its creamy whiteness stretching out for what seems eternity, waiting for colors from markers to rain down upon it in lines and dots, swirls and scribbles.

What is to be created? Does it matter? They take the colored sharpies in hand and draw at the kitchen table. Markers and a big piece of paper. Magic.

She draws girls and boys--girls with triangle dresses, boys with inverted triangle bodies. She draws a playground with swings and teeter-totter, children going down slides, children jumping ropes. She even draws camels at the request of the Gingerbread Man to go along with the stories he tells the gingerbread boys of Ahmad and his whistling camel.

The gingerbread boys color in her line drawings, turning pigtails red and green. One draws a piano. The other draws a great pool of blue.

She thinks she should do this more often. Big blank sheet of paper. Fresh markers. No expectations. No judgment.

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