Craft

I came late to the adult coloring game. I watched the proliferation of hyper-detailed coloring books (some featuring amusing levels of elaborate profanity), the fancy sets of markers, and the inevitable thinkpieces about why Millennials seemed to be so into coloring books these days. (The dominant theories seemed to be that either we're so infantilized by our participation-trophy upbringings that we're desperately clinging to our childhoods, or that the adult life of the average Millennial has been so laden with national traumas - 9/11, the 2008 recession, the pandemic - that we're desperately clinging to our childhoods.)

I watched it all with a kind of detached amusement, but didn't participate until three things happened at once: I fell in love with someone who lived far away, I realized I needed something meditative and soothing to do with my hands on our frequent Zoom calls, and someone in my neighborhood offered up one of those sets of adult coloring markers he wasn't using.

I took the markers, and turned to the internet for images to color - I wanted something that wasn't as full of tiny details as the adult coloring books, but didn't want giant swaths of space to fill, either. I printed a hodgepodge of coloring pages on my ancient inkjet printer, stuck them on a clipboard, and settled down to it on my crush's and my next call.

I expected it to be soothing. I expected it to be relaxing. I expected the coloring to occupy my mind just enough that I could focus on what she was saying (she also had a project - a giant knitted blanket.)

I didn't expect it to become a new language. I didn't expect the capacity for this activity (I wasn't even calling it a craft) to become a vehicle for love.

It started simply enough - at the end of our call, I held up my coloring page for my crush to admire. She oohed and aahed and admired my color choices, and I thought, maybe I should send it to her. A fun little thing in the mail.

I cut out the design - a process that took almost as long as coloring it, imperfect and deliberate, and slipped the letters L-O-V-E into a subtle corner of the piece. I folded it, slipped it into the envelope, and wrote her address from memory. It was not the first time I'd sent her something, but the first time I'd sent her something I made. It felt different.

We continued with our weekly calls, and a pattern developed; I'd spend our call coloring, then spend part of my lunch break the following day cutting it out, figuring out a little message to slip into it, and sending it off. (The message in the photo above is "Come to the wild with care" - the first line of a beautiful song she introduced me to.)

I began to choose patterns and designs I thought she'd like, color schemes that reminded me of her, quotes that would resonate. The most elaborate coloring I've done so far is a picture of a tall ship, each stroke of the waves in a different shade of green or gray. They feel less like crafts and more like rituals, almost spell-like. Here is the green I chose that reminds me of her eyes. Here is the flower that reminds me most of her. Here is the detailed cutting around the border that took me so long to do. I thought of how you'd appreciate it the whole time. How many different ways can I say I love you in a picture?

I make them, as the old saying goes, with love.

Some people think love is an art - spontaneous and ethereal, something that comes through you, but not from you. Love is divine. Love is a force beyond your control. Either you love someone or you don't. It isn't up to you?

Me? I think love is something you start with passion and grow into a practice. Love is deliberate. Love is colorful. Love is patient. Love is the act of building something. A slow walk into the deep end.

You could almost call it a craft.