crayons and ugly shoes

I changed my calendar this morning. I want to turn over a new leaf. Maybe February makes me think about Valentine’s Day and Black History Month, or maybe it reminds me of my Grandpa’s death, or maybe I just like the new donkey picture I can enjoy until March 1 when I get to flip the calendar to the next page. In any case, I hope I never change for the sake of change, just like I hope I never enjoy art for its own sake or brush my teeth only because I have to.

When I came back to school last month, I forgot my colored pencils. For some reason I decided to clean up my room at home, so I put them in the drawer with my old journals -- the adolescent pining and confessions I like to think have gone undiscovered, although somehow I suspect they have been flipped through at some time or another. But that’s all beside the point. There with the past I try to keep stuffed away in my nightstand, my colored pencils still wait for me to remember them. I like my pencils a lot because they have erasers, and when I went to Wal-Mart to replace them I found a $7.99 price sticker. “No way did I pay eight dollars for colored pencils,” I thought to myself. “The price must have gone up a lot in seven years. I will just have to use something else. No sense in having two identical boxes of the same expensive pencils.” Feeling frugal and quite stubborn, I returned to the dorm and set about rummaging through my craft supplies. I discovered some markers, only half of which worked, and with big nubby tips. “Too clumsy, too permanent, and too wet to use in my Bible.” More rummaging. At last, a worn out box of dollar store brand crayons. “Those will work, I guess. Still permanent, but at least they won’t bleed.” For a month now I’ve marked in my Bible with crayons, and I’ve almost decided I like it. Something about coloring in my Bible makes me feel like a kid again, like I may be breaking the rules or going outside the lines, and I like that feeling.

A professor once said, “Nothing happens in a vacuum. Nothing.” I wrote that down at the top of my notes, right beside “1066 -- Norman invasion; influx of French-speakers (and French Fries?)” I remember that statement often, and it holds a lot of truth. Everything we do has some motivation, whether desire or dissatisfaction or provocation. For me it usually has something to do with either fear or rules. I have always felt the need to follow all rules set before me, unwavering in my devotion to justice and a sense of personal discipline. My roommate, on the other hand, doesn’t always share this compelling. It seems to me that every time I listen to her we end up in trouble, albeit fun trouble. For a while I let people convince me that rules are stupid and made for breaking. Lately I’ve begun to see that rules usually come from someone with experience, someone who knows what goes on in the real world. Sometimes not, but most of the time. Does this mean we shouldn’t question the rules? Can we with good conscience and good sense go blindly after someone else’s standards? Even if that person has more experience, more wisdom? This is not a rhetorical question. I really don’t know.

I do know that crayons work almost as well as colored pencils, and they look prettier. Markers, well, I probably would have regretted that choice. Another professor likes to bleed his red pen all over adverbs and forms of the verb “to be,” and that drove me crazy until I realized that my writing sounds better without them. Last night I started the process of revising all of my well-meaning creative efforts, the plethora of formless rambling and poems and lyric fragments (real fragments, not Coleridge masterpieces). I firmly believe that everything should have a purpose outside of its own existence, beyond being nicely made, but I see now that sometimes a job well done just happens to accomplish more. I want to know that the rules I follow are good, to follow the good ones and then do away with the rest. Now see, I just used a form of “to be” and I want to take it out, but I don’t know how to rephrase that sentence. This time I choose to just leave it alone.

I do hereby resolve to question the rules I don’t understand, and the person I don’t understand, and the whole world, really, because I don’t understand any of it. But I also want to give everything a fair chance, even crayons and ugly shoes. I got some ugly shoes for Christmas, and I wear them every day because they feel good. I like my ugly shoes. You should try them on, because although they may look funny, I haven’t found anything that feels closer to barefoot. I’m glad I gave my shoes a chance, and I’m glad I forgot my pencils. I do wish I had listened when people told me that nothing but 3M Command Strips will keep my decorations on the wall. After going three less expensive routes, and climbing behind the bed three times to rescue my paintings, I finally forked over the $3 for some Command Strips. I have confidence that my donkey calendar will still be hanging over my desk next month when I need to turn it again, because I finally listened to someone’s advice. I will also still be wearing my ugly shoes.