Crayola Bombs and Cadet Blue

"Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air - explode softly - and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth - boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap, either - not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination." ~ Robert Fulghum

Everyone knows the smell of a new box of crayons.  It brings back the memories of coloring books, Christmas morning stockings, refrigerators, and second grade.  Following the opening of that box saunter in the emotions, the excitement of a new school year, the pride of a piece of art, the hurt when they didn't know what it was we drew.  We can feel the thin paper wrapped wax stick without needing one in your hand, we can feel the smoothness of the tiny rod, and the wax bits under a fingernail after trying to scrape it off the paper.  We can hear the soft, easy tear of the paper, and the nearly inaudible scrape of the plastic sharpener.

We each have our favorites, from simple "Red" to the more exciting "Unmellow Yellow" and "Cerulean." There are the colors that make us relate, like "Lavender" and "Denim."  It's these colors, the hundreds of tones that bring the world around us to life, that paint the relationships we have with everyone and everything that we come in contact with.  These combinations of hues are the colors of our emotions, our relationships, our hopes and fears, our dreams, our selves.  They offer so much more than just pigment on paper.  They offer a place to return to, stability in an increasingly changing world, something to identify with when we feel lost, and an offer of comfort.