Mother Angst: Outside the Lines

Outside the Lines

By Joanne Catz Hartman

"Color!" my daughter commands; it's what we've come outside to do, engage in art together. But she notices that I'm writing words instead. I feel badly about this, even though I'm using a crayon to do so, one whose wrapper reads "cerulean."

I'm not supposed to be writing now. It's mother-daughter coloring time. I'm here to make pictures and shade in shapes, yet my crayon creates words and sentences on the bare, colorless paper.

My daughter stops checking what I'm doing and focuses back to her own picture; Mommy's writing, she's always writing, she'll always be writing repeats the thought loop in her brain, I suppose. She knows that this is what I do.

I write. A lot. Sometimes I even get paid. She's opened the meager checks, which to her seem like a fortune next to her three-dollar allowance. But I shouldn't be working now.

We're outside in lawn chairs on the deck that wraps around our house, on a summer morning. A red-tail hawk loops overhead, performing on a pale backdrop. "Look," I point upwards, and we stall our art to watch it swim in the pool of the sky.

As if on cue, a small, white butterfly flits by, pausing in the bougainvillea; its light wings contrast with the dark magenta flowers. Actually, they're more fuchsia, or closer yet to purple pizzazz -- we find its crayon counterpart from the big box.

There's so much color outside today. The sky seems enormous, the bay below shimmers. And it surprises me that I'm noticing it. I've been indoors so much -- healing my injured back, completing projects, and trying to meet deadlines -- I'd forgotten how bright it is outside. And because of this, I've been, well, in a gray mood, but that's melted away in this day so full of light.

Our chocolate Labrador retriever lies nearby on the sun-warmed deck and gives a big, contented dog snort sigh. "Can you find the color that matches her?" I challenge my art partner, as I attempt, with enthusiasm and smiles, to reconnect on this day we planned together. On her first try, she plucks the right one from the box. What's it called? Not sepia or burnt sienna, but simply brown. We laugh at the simplicity of perfection.

Sky-blue shavings melt onto the green plastic side table we're coloring on, leaving an oily outline. I write this detail down.

As far back as I can remember, I've written down words. As a child, they were accompanied by crayoned drawings. Later, no longer with art attached, I narrated my life in diaries and essays, sometimes embellishing in fiction, occasionally subtracting thoughts and details too heavy or personal for the printed page.

But even for a writer, life isn't always a story. Sometimes it's just life, birds and sky, enjoying time with others, not always examining the details or imagining what-ifs. I envy my artistic child, who is so simply present in the moment. Like now, lost in her art but able to pull away from it to chase a lizard and follow it home, where it disappears under a shady brick.

I think: try it. Notice this moment, let go of what's to come. I take in the crayon's smell -- of innocence, of childhood. I listen to the muffled wood saw coming from the neighbor's closed garage and notice the feel of the chair's starchy canvas fabric on my bare legs.

Then, I put my crayon down and watch as my daughter finishes her picture. She's lost in the moment of doing, creating bold designs that come from nowhere. It's her talent and passion. And it has been since I placed a box of watercolors and a paintbrush on her highchair tray -- such focus and determination, and pure content.

She's chosen -- or maybe it's chosen her -- a solitary pursuit (like mother, like daughter). It's ironic that both of us prefer to do our craft while in the presence of others, finding comfort in connection, even if spoken words are not always exchanged. I'm compelled to lay down words; she's driven to draw and paint and craft with a variety of mediums, at her happiest within the world of art and nature. I'm going to be an artist-scientist, she tells us often, or sometimes, a scientist-artist.

Remembering this, I suggest a matching game, one that combines both art and nature. And, well, sure, there is some writing involved. The red-orange crayon she plucks from the box of 100 is the color of the red tail hawk; the sky, a combination of periwinkle, cornflower, and timberwolf. We hold them up to the sky, then make swirls on the paper and confer as to which we think come closest. The arsenal of water balloons laying on the deck -- that she and her friends filled and piled up at last night's party -- are bladders of carnation pink and scarlet, laser lemon and razzmatazz.

I'm in the moment, in her world, and she's a little bit in mine.

The butterfly -- buckeye? monarch? -- on the brilliant bush of purple flowers, I don't know what the flowers are called. I'm no botanist, but I do know that we can find the crayon that matches it perfectly. I reach over to the purple hues to begin the hunt. Before I select one, my daughter states, "Purple mountain's majesty." She's right, the precise equivalent. I explain that this crayon is a stranger, one I've met just now for the very first time.

Color titles, the complexity of hues, of these she's had an early education. At five she drew and colored in feet -- lots of feet, and bodies attached to them -- using a particular orangey-pink felt pen. "Mommy, do you want to see the color feet one?" she asked, and I was perplexed. "The pen. It says 'color feet' on it," she explained and handed me the marker. "Coral reef" was written on its side, certainly a fine color for her feet. I continued to call it what she thought it said, didn't try to explain that feet come in many different colors.

This year, she used crayons of peach and apricot and melon for skin tones, sometimes tumbleweed. Her schoolmates are Caucasian, but her camps this summer are more racially diverse. To draw her counselor she'll use copper, and for her new best camp friend, she'll opt for bolder, darker hues.

I tell her that many of the color names -- the ones I don't recall from my childhood -- I find absurd. "Please pass the macaroni and cheese," I say, and I'm talking about a crayon. My sarcasm -- "Really now, what kind of color is magic mint? Or atomic tangerine?" -- upset my child.

"I love those ones," she cries. Maybe she knows something I don't. Perhaps her future career will involve being able to discern the difference between cerise and mulberry or blue violet and royal purple, which, to me, look exactly the same. I ask her to show me. She marks the shades side by side. "See?" I try to peer more closely, but I don't perceive the subtleties the same way she does.

Later that evening, as my husband tackles bedtime duty, chasing the artist upstairs to see who can reach the top step first, I can't help but notice the intense square of blue framed in our window at dusk. It's not navy yet or midnight blue and I actually find myself wandering toward the crayon box to find the match. Indigo? Denim? I pull them out and hold them up to the window to see.

Joanne Catz Hartman lives with her husband and daughter in Northern California. She is a columnist at the J Weekly and her work has appeared in local parenting publications, her alumni magazine, and the anthology The Knitter's Gift. She is Literary Mama's Profiles Editor and can be reached at profiles@literarymama.com.




Recent Columns On Clothing, Or Lack of It Boxed Out Belle of the Ball Taking the Plunge Outside the Lines Tag, You're It! Intervention Loothing It The One You're With Birth Stories Archives "Mother Angst" archives Literary Mama Links Home Columns Creative Nonfiction Fiction Literary Criticism Poetry Profiles & Reviews E-zine About us Submissions Contact Shop Literary Mama Search Search this site: Powered by Movable Type 3.16	Mother Angst « Tag, You're It! \| Back to "Mother Angst" main page \| Taking the Plunge » Outside the Lines By Joanne Catz Hartman "Color!" my daughter commands; it's what we've come outside to do, engage in art together. But she notices that I'm writing words instead. I feel badly about this, even though I'm using a crayon to do so, one whose wrapper reads "cerulean." I'm not supposed to be writing now. It's mother-daughter coloring time. I'm here to make pictures and shade in shapes, yet my crayon creates words and sentences on the bare, colorless paper. My daughter stops checking what I'm doing and focuses back to her own picture; Mommy's writing, she's always writing, she'll always be writing repeats the thought loop in her brain, I suppose. She knows that this is what I do. I write. A lot. Sometimes I even get paid. She's opened the meager checks, which to her seem like a fortune next to her three-dollar allowance. But I shouldn't be working now. We're outside in lawn chairs on the deck that wraps around our house, on a summer morning. A red-tail hawk loops overhead, performing on a pale backdrop. "Look," I point upwards, and we stall our art to watch it swim in the pool of the sky. As if on cue, a small, white butterfly flits by, pausing in the bougainvillea; its light wings contrast with the dark magenta flowers. Actually, they're more fuchsia, or closer yet to purple pizzazz -- we find its crayon counterpart from the big box. There's so much color outside today. The sky seems enormous, the bay below shimmers. And it surprises me that I'm noticing it. I've been indoors so much -- healing my injured back, completing projects, and trying to meet deadlines -- I'd forgotten how bright it is outside. And because of this, I've been, well, in a gray mood, but that's melted away in this day so full of light. Our chocolate Labrador retriever lies nearby on the sun-warmed deck and gives a big, contented dog snort sigh. "Can you find the color that matches her?" I challenge my art partner, as I attempt, with enthusiasm and smiles, to reconnect on this day we planned together. On her first try, she plucks the right one from the box. What's it called? Not sepia or burnt sienna, but simply brown. We laugh at the simplicity of perfection. Sky-blue shavings melt onto the green plastic side table we're coloring on, leaving an oily outline. I write this detail down. As far back as I can remember, I've written down words. As a child, they were accompanied by crayoned drawings. Later, no longer with art attached, I narrated my life in diaries and essays, sometimes embellishing in fiction, occasionally subtracting thoughts and details too heavy or personal for the printed page. But even for a writer, life isn't always a story. Sometimes it's just life, birds and sky, enjoying time with others, not always examining the details or imagining what-ifs. I envy my artistic child, who is so simply present in the moment. Like now, lost in her art but able to pull away from it to chase a lizard and follow it home, where it disappears under a shady brick. I think: try it. Notice this moment, let go of what's to come. I take in the crayon's smell -- of innocence, of childhood. I listen to the muffled wood saw coming from the neighbor's closed garage and notice the feel of the chair's starchy canvas fabric on my bare legs. Then, I put my crayon down and watch as my daughter finishes her picture. She's lost in the moment of doing, creating bold designs that come from nowhere. It's her talent and passion. And it has been since I placed a box of watercolors and a paintbrush on her highchair tray -- such focus and determination, and pure content. She's chosen -- or maybe it's chosen her -- a solitary pursuit (like mother, like daughter). It's ironic that both of us prefer to do our craft while in the presence of others, finding comfort in connection, even if spoken words are not always exchanged. I'm compelled to lay down words; she's driven to draw and paint and craft with a variety of mediums, at her happiest within the world of art and nature. I'm going to be an artist-scientist, she tells us often, or sometimes, a scientist-artist. Remembering this, I suggest a matching game, one that combines both art and nature. And, well, sure, there is some writing involved. The red-orange crayon she plucks from the box of 100 is the color of the red tail hawk; the sky, a combination of periwinkle, cornflower, and timberwolf. We hold them up to the sky, then make swirls on the paper and confer as to which we think come closest. The arsenal of water balloons laying on the deck -- that she and her friends filled and piled up at last night's party -- are bladders of carnation pink and scarlet, laser lemon and razzmatazz. I'm in the moment, in her world, and she's a little bit in mine. The butterfly -- buckeye? monarch? -- on the brilliant bush of purple flowers, I don't know what the flowers are called. I'm no botanist, but I do know that we can find the crayon that matches it perfectly. I reach over to the purple hues to begin the hunt. Before I select one, my daughter states, "Purple mountain's majesty." She's right, the precise equivalent. I explain that this crayon is a stranger, one I've met just now for the very first time. Color titles, the complexity of hues, of these she's had an early education. At five she drew and colored in feet -- lots of feet, and bodies attached to them -- using a particular orangey-pink felt pen. "Mommy, do you want to see the color feet one?" she asked, and I was perplexed. "The pen. It says 'color feet' on it," she explained and handed me the marker. "Coral reef" was written on its side, certainly a fine color for her feet. I continued to call it what she thought it said, didn't try to explain that feet come in many different colors. This year, she used crayons of peach and apricot and melon for skin tones, sometimes tumbleweed. Her schoolmates are Caucasian, but her camps this summer are more racially diverse. To draw her counselor she'll use copper, and for her new best camp friend, she'll opt for bolder, darker hues. I tell her that many of the color names -- the ones I don't recall from my childhood -- I find absurd. "Please pass the macaroni and cheese," I say, and I'm talking about a crayon. My sarcasm -- "Really now, what kind of color is magic mint? Or atomic tangerine?" -- upset my child. "I love those ones," she cries. Maybe she knows something I don't. Perhaps her future career will involve being able to discern the difference between cerise and mulberry or blue violet and royal purple, which, to me, look exactly the same. I ask her to show me. She marks the shades side by side. "See?" I try to peer more closely, but I don't perceive the subtleties the same way she does. Later that evening, as my husband tackles bedtime duty, chasing the artist upstairs to see who can reach the top step first, I can't help but notice the intense square of blue framed in our window at dusk. It's not navy yet or midnight blue and I actually find myself wandering toward the crayon box to find the match. Indigo? Denim? I pull them out and hold them up to the window to see. Joanne Catz Hartman lives with her husband and daughter in Northern California. She is a columnist at the J Weekly and her work has appeared in local parenting publications, her alumni magazine, and the anthology The Knitter's Gift. She is Literary Mama's Profiles Editor and can be reached at profiles@literarymama.com.