Coloring in Between the Lines, by Liz Burns

Sometime last year I decided to try out the adult coloring book trend. "It's really relaxing," someone said to me. "I just color at night while my husband watches TV."

So I went to the store and looked at coloring books. There were so many to choose from. I picked one with a garden theme, and then my friend gave me one (from the stack she had next to the TV.) So I had two. I bought some markers, and a set of colored pencils, and I was off. 

I packed everything up and went to one of my favorite spots by the lake, sat down at a picnic table, and took out markers and a book. I was ready to color and be relaxed. I started with a floral design.

I love color, I love how mixing colors gives a result completely different than the original, and I love creating endless designs and patterns from color. I've always loved that.

What I had forgotten, though, is how much I don't love coloring in between the lines. I never, ever managed this.  From the time I was able to pick up a crayon, I scribbled in almost every coloring book I ever had. In kindergarten and first grade I was almost never one of the students whose coloring book sheets got tacked up on the bulletin board, because I could never keep my coloring in between the lines of the drawing. Invariably there would be a crayon slash outside the boundaries of a skirt or a tree or someone's hair.  The result was not a neat, tidy, colored-in drawing, but an uneven crayon coloring that far surpassed the boundaries drawn on the page.

This trait didn't confine itself just to crayons. It also happened with things I glued together — more glue showed on the outside of the construction paper than on the back.  When I used scissors I couldn't cut in a straight line no matter how it was marked or how short of a cut I had to make. And my drawing was non-existent, although I got pretty good at stick figures at some point. I was  one of only two students to get a "D" in my seventh grade art class.

Some of this was running through my mind last summer as I sat at the picnic table by the lake. I had a lot of time, a lot of markers. I was ready, or so I thought.

I colored in the petals of the first flower. It felt good. I started on the petals of the second flower. They were a little smaller, it was a little harder. Not so relaxing. I turned my attention to the stem. It was hard getting that marker to stay completely in between the lines all the way down. Wait, I forgot to color in the center of the flowers.

"How is this relaxing?" I thought. "This isn't relaxing. It's stressful. Why is this a trend?"

I looked at the page. The design had impossibly little areas to color in. I knew right then and there, getting more stressed by the minute, that I wasn't going to last. 

Two flowers, and I was done.