Last week I downsized our extensive marker, colored pencil and crayon collection from out of control back to approaching reasonability. A friend and the preschool made out quite well (although how many of the markers—at our house, the friend’s house and the school—are dried up I cannot tell you). Rather than judging this vast accumulation as a terrible thing, what I realize is with four kids stuff accumulates (it could be a new catchphrase along the lines of s%&# happens). As I weeded and sorted, I made a mini-collection in a jar of pink and purple coloring implements to honor my little gal’s usual request when seeking drawing materials for pink and purple.
I’ve come a long way, baby. So I’ve embraced this moment of pink and purple. I like pink. I like purple. A friend stopped over a couple of weeks ago to borrow our Ergo carrier for a long while (let’s say, forever, really). Her son—gender before he arrived unknown—was the recipient of the purple fleece infant jacket I bought for my first—gender before he arrived unknown—and always, but always three boys’ worth of wearing caught flak for, because some people—names not known—believed firmly that boys shouldn’t wear purple. As if the dresser of the boy were playing with their minds; I was not at all surprised to discover that my friend whose son recently wore this same purple jacket had the exact same experience.
PS: The purple infant jacket didn’t stop me. The eldest boy loved purple and this past winter our pal Arella, age five, wore a hand-me-down that was his (and his brother’s), a purple winter jacket and purple snow pants. Were people confused when the boys were in preschool or kindergarten over the purple outerwear? Yes, indeed they were.
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Friday, the middle boys didn’t have school because it was a staff development day and the little girl never goes to school on Fridays. She requested her brother draw a cat, a pink and purple cat.
Then, she helped him to draw the cat.
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Later that day, that brother and I went to interview a cheesemonger. His passion may not be pink and purple, it may be shades of white and yellow and often stinky. He was starry-eyed about the cheese and about the notion that you could create a work life surrounded by things you love so much, which, for him, means beautiful food.
Passion is a good thing to support. Riding home from our weekend in the Berkshires—the cheese shot was taken at Rubiner’s Cheesemongers and Grocers—on Sunday afternoon, the eldest and I were discussing his passion, theater, which he imagines, as a tenth grader, is the thing he wants to do, as in with capital letters for life do. He figures that the debt incurred during law school—another interest is law—is so great and the job prospects so uncertain and his area of interest in the law, prosecution, so low-paying that when you get down to it theater isn’t so nonsensical. And you have to admit he has a point. The youngest brother’s is skiing, FYI. He’s in third grade and his college plans can be summed up in just one word: Colorado (as in, the Rockies).
