A daughter who colors

"It takes a good while to color one of these things in completely—a few hours, I’d say—and there’s something very satisfying about watching the color slowly spread across the page, about seeing your thought and effort create a tangible, pretty thing at a reasonable, predictable pace. This rarely happens in life." - Julie Beck in "The Zen of Adult Coloring Books," www.atlantic.com

The daughter who turns child again when faced with adult coloring books is out of the house, out of town and won't be back until the weekend. That is when she resumes her coloring pace, her months-old hobby that took off at about the same time when these books became the hottest things in bookstores and online auctions.

I guiltily riffled through her collection of coloring materials (pencils, crayons, markers) and books to take some shots because I admire how she chooses her colors and puts them together to create jewels for the eyes. Hmmm...written like a proud mama. My favorite of the lot is how she "solved" the coloring scheme for the outline of Sherlock Holmes.

Keep on coloring, Kimi, as a way out of stress and humdrum routine and into something relaxing and enriching to your inner life.

I would've killed to own art materials like these in my youth.

It's also nice to leave an area uncolored (see baby owl at bottom) for contrast.

Mr. Holmes at his address on Baker Street Photos by Babeth Lolarga

Colors of a morning

The neighbor had his/her old quilt dry in the sun and the sight of it brought to mind that quote about life: "Life is about using the whole box of crayons." I was just as filled with admiration with the person/s who made the quilt. In Baguio there used to be a quilting community (maybe a tradition passed on by the American colonial women). I'm not sure if there is still one with cheap comforters now available at the mall that's got it all.

Makes you wonder what the story is behind each square of cloth that went into this beauty. Photo by Babeth Lolarga

They in my life, me in theirs

"Trappings and charm wear off… Let people see you. They see your upper arms are beautiful, soft and clean and warm, and then they will see this about their own, some of the time. It’s called having friends, choosing each other, getting found, being fished out of the rubble. It blows you away, how this wonderful event ever happened — me in your life, you in mine." - Anne Lamott, Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace

Crayons for toddler hands Photo by Babeth Lolarga

It just came to me while thinking through my gratitude list how friends, to include family members like cousins I grew up with, have sustained me in my nearly six decades on this blessed Earth. From whom did I learn how to make and keep friends?

One of the reassuring sounds I hear daily in my Pasig home is my mother chatting with one of her Legion of Mary sisters. It's a conversation punctuated with girlish giggles (she's 87) even if one of their favorite topics is the ache and discomfort of old age, how limited their movements and activities have become.

And then I remember my father, too, a doctor who made house calls and whose weakness or strength, depending on how you look at it, is not charging his patients whether they're well off or not. He'd say in Filipino, "Hindi ko kailangan ng pera, kaibigan ang kailangan ko (I don't need money much; I need friends.)" It came to pass that at his burial, legions came, including a truck full of workers.

The friends who've blessed my life are as varied as the colors in my grandchild's crayon basket. I wouldn't have them any other way.