Paint Chip Off the Old Block

I love to play with paint color chips. Still. Yeh, I know, I'm nearly fifty. I still pick them up and stuff them in my purse at the paint department of Home Depot or Elliott's Hardware. I hope no one will ask me what I'm planning to paint, how many gallons I'll need, or whether I want flat or semi-gloss latex. It's hard to explain that I just want to spread the samples out on a table and rearrange them in different designs.

A friend at the ballet last night asked me what else fun and exciting I had planned for the weekend. "I'm not the parent-on-duty this weekend, for a change," I said. "I can stay wrapped in blankets and read, or write. I can fool around with my Photoshop program. I can eat burritos for breakfast if I choose. I can smell freshly ironed clothes while I watch the Bogart movie my son gave me for Christmas. I can play with colors, textures, and lines." I don't know if she understood that I considered these options fun and exciting. Play and contentment are sometimes about being instead of doing. Sometimes in the game of Life we recharge with champagne bubbles and fireworks, and other times with purring cats and simmering soups.


I'm especially fond of the paint chip books with perforated pages. The pages are dry to the touch, and the chalky scent catches at the back of my throat. Fold on the perforations, and carefully tear the little rectangles into Candy Land sidewalks, carnival tickets, Chance, Community Chest, and Monopoly play money. Lie on your stomach on the rug in the living room on a rainy day, arranging a color mosaic, and listening to "April in Paris". Plan gardens of colors separated by gray flagstones that need no trowel. Quilts that need no sewing. Be still and dream.

We had lots of color samples for paints and tiles growing up. I always considered them treasures and BIG perks of my dad's job as a structural engineer in an architectural firm. Kids felt sorry for me because I didn't have a Chatty Cathy. I felt sorry for them because they didn't have tile samples.

My students of all ages have been playing with circles inside squares this week to create magic maps based on board games. The inspiration comes from two books I love to read aloud to kids (even twenty times in one week), Circle Dogs, by Kevin Henkes, and You Are Here, by Nina Crews.


So many wonderful winter hours spent with board games at the family dining table--checkers, chess, dominoes, Chutes & Ladders, Candy Land, Monopoly, Memory, Chinese checkers, pop-a-matic Trouble, and my mom's beloved Scrabble. Visualize tic-tac-toe and Twister, too.

You sank my battleship!