Can't you smell the waxy, paper fragrance of a newly opened box of crayons? If you close your eyes and think back to your school days and opening that box of 48 crayons for the first time...mmm. The possibilities! Other smells bring back that freshness of new things starting, the smell of wet leaves in the fall and wood smoke, shoe polish, starched cotton being ironed, pencils being sharpened.
And the allure of coloring pages...following the lines, shading in the large areas carefully to have uniform color, filling in small areas with strong intense color. Picking out the colors you wanted to use ahead of time and laying them out in a row across the top of your desk. Or, trading color books with your friend and taking extra pains to make your friend's picture extra special. Sharpening your colors after they lost their original point and loving the colored shavings as much as you loved that brand new crayon. Saving the shaving in the palm of your hand where the warmth of your hand softened the curl of the wax until it became sticky and you had to throw it away. Making alternating colored rows on the lines of your notebook paper until you filled up the entire sheet with almost all the colors in your box.
That's what I am seeing every day here in the foothills of Appalachia...crayon colors across the hills. Burnt sienna, maroon, mahogany, goldenrod, lemon yellow, neon carrot, burnt orange, chestnut, copper, red violet, and on through the palette. You have to take it all in now, because it will turn soon to the brown and gold family. So, go get your crayon box, and your large piece of paper you have been saving and start pulling out your favorite colors because you can use them all....even the blues, because the sky competes with the trees for intensity. However you imagine it, it is probably exactly what it looks like. You've got it in your mind...Go ahead and go crazy!
Photo by Don Hyatt http://www.tjhsst.edu
Photo by Don Hyatt http://www.tjhsst.edu
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