Inside the Lines

Crayola crayons—my first pack. Eight colors lined up in their yellow and green box in perfect order—red, green, blue, yellow, orange, purple, brown, black.

I’m three, crouched on the floor of Grandma’s parlor, coloring inside the lines as Mother instructed, in my new Cinderella coloring book, with my new box of crayons. Mother introduces me to her date. I’m coloring Cinderella’s gown. Pressing hard with my blue. I want her pretty for the prince.

“Are you my daddy,” I ask.

“I’ll have to see what we can do about that,” he says.

***

Stay inside the lines. Keep order, don’t fray, don’t stray, bear down hard for brightness. Mother reminds me often that perfection is a virtue.

***

Whenever I think of crayons, I think of Daddy rescuing me on the day I shaved down crayon nubs with Mother’s grater. I am seven with an idea. The idea to make paint with eight shaved colors—red, green, blue, yellow, orange, purple, brown, black.

I wait until noon, the sweltering part of a deep south summer, to mound the shavings in little clusters, each color perfectly spaced on the straight-line walk from the street to my house. The crayons melt in the hot sun, but they don’t turn to paint. They ooze into the rough concrete making a mess on the sidewalk and harden there when the sun fades. I feel Mother’s fury. I’ve colored outside the lines. She yells, clean up this mess. She is about to whollop me when Daddy intervenes.

***

I don’t know the way to my creativity yet. I’ve been taught to stay inside the lines. For Mother’s attention. I watch how others do it—my friends in fifth grade. How they get attention. Try to be like them. Like Julia. She laughs a raucous laugh at anything funny. Mrs. Centenni doesn’t scold her. Just cajoles her. I see the attention Julia gets, so when Julia howls with laughter, I do too.

Mrs. Centenni doesn’t cajole me in the same way. Instead, she seats me away from Julia in a desk right next to hers. I feel ashamed. Ears burn hot. The class is watching. Mrs. Centenni tells them I’m not being punished. She wants me close for creative aid. She sees my talent.

I feel good about myself for the very first time.

Other teachers take notice, give me drawing assignments. And lots of attention. They like my detail, my perfection. They like the way I color in Christopher Columbus’s face—the way it looks in pictures—pressing down hard with each color for brightness. I use red, yellow, brown, blue to get his skin tone right. I want him to look real. It’s hard work.

***

Mother admires hard work. Here’s a bucket of cleaning supplies. Put your talent to good use. Scrub floors, wax floors, clean cigarette butts out of the ashtrays, wash the highball glasses. Dry them and put them away. Dust and polish the furniture. Clean the bathtub, sink, and toilet with Ajax cleanser. Polish the mirror in our one bathroom. Wash windows. Clean the grout between the tiles.

I clean for Mother’s attention. Create order in our house of chaos.

I stay inside the lines. While Mother and Daddy drink.

Live my life for Mother’s attention. Her approval. Stay inside the lines. For her.

***

At thirty-five, pregnant with my daughter, I make a drawing for her room using colored pencils to make perfect replicas of crayons posing at different angles and heights as if suspended by invisible wire. With actual crayons, I scribble with a heavy hand—run each scribble to the tip of the same color crayon. It looks like each colored-pencil-crayon is making its own scribbles on which to hang. I title the drawing, “Crayons Suspended from Tangled Scribbles.”

Two days before I turn sixty, Mother dies. I rejoice with paint. Learn unrestrained creative expression. Express a different me, unbounded by rules. Confident. Finding enjoyment in taking risks.

Use my grout-cleaning arm to let go of the line, make new kinds of lines. Crosshatch.

Use my floor-scrubbing arm to scumble paint onto canvas. Rub it in hard.

Use my circular-cleaning arm to color the canvas with bars of color the texture of softened butter.

Use my floor wax-applying arm to wax and polish my canvas when it’s done.

***

I’ve outgrown the need for attention-getting perfection. The need for Cinderella trappings and tools.

I’m not that three-year-old. Or that seven-year-old. I’m not that ten-year-old anymore. Or that thirty-five-year-old. I’m not even that sixty-year-old anymore. I’m finding new expression beyond Mother’s restraint. Beyond the order of colors in my first box of crayons.

I’m free from Mother—no longer confined to her prison of lines.

-WOW-Women On Writing Contest Runner Up 1^st Qtr 2023