I love color. I love lipstick red, school-bus yellow, Fourth of July blue. I love the soft colors of moss and mauve, heather and gray. I love the contrast of black and white.
As a child, I always looked forward to the start of school. First, because I love learning. Second, because it meant a new box of Crayola crayons. In those days, Crayolas came in boxes of eight, sixteen, twenty-four, and sixty-four. Of course, I wanted the jumbo box, with all the possibilities it promised.
The jumbo box of Crayolas puts me in mind of my friends. (I can hear your collective groan. There she goes, blathering on about friends. Again. It was that or writing about policy in the Middle East. And, really, who wants to hear about that?)
Like a box of crayons, my friends and I come in different hues. Some are bright pops; others tend toward subtle shading. In one way, the most important way, we are united. That is in our love for each other. Recently, one friend suffered in learning that her husband had a serious illness. The rest of us rallied behind her. We wept in private, then we got to work.
We brought meals and provided rides. We showered her with quilts to warm the body and flowers to soothe the soul. We sent cards with inspirational messages and cards with Maxine cartoons (that was me). We celebrated at each snippet of good news. We prayed, and then we prayed some more. Throughout it all, we were there for her ... and she for us. Our friend's husband is doing well now, and we give thanks to a merciful Father.
I am not a gardener and make no pretense to be one. But if I had my dream garden, it would not showcase orderly rows of identical flowers tidily marching one after the other. Instead, it would be a profusion of color spilling into color in wild and reckless abandon, ranging from the palest pink to the most vivid scarlet, from delicate lavender to showy purple. It would hold not only all the colors of the jumbo box of crayons but the colors of friendship as well.
So, for today, I am grateful for jumbo boxes of Crayola crayons ... and for a garden of friends.
I know what you mean, Jane. I always loved the promise of the 64 box of Crayolas. I would stare at it for awhile, breathing in the scent of new crayon, noticing the order of the colors, dreaming of the way each would look on a sheet of fresh white paper.
ReplyDeleteBut it never stayed that way for long.
Soon it was all in a jumble, a victim of being spread over the table, rolling on to the floor. The nice, even tops would resemble a thorn bush, sticking out at every possible angle as I intentionally flattened some sides or wore others down to blunts.
Come to think of it, that's what happens to us in life. We all start out within a few inches and pounds of each other, and looks what happens!
Life is like a box of crayons, but sometimes I wish it were more like a box of chocolates!