When I was a little girl, I loved to color. I had stacks of coloring books and a big box filled with crayons of various sizes and colors. Hours were spent at the table with my supplies. The moment I opened the box, the sweet, waxy smell of crayons would rise to my nose. You remember that scent, don't you?

I always started with black. I would carefully draw thick, bold, black lines over the predawn guides in my coloring book, preparing the bland page for an infusion of bold color. My little fingers would select the perfect shade from my box of 64 Crayola Crayons and lightly fill in the shapes. When the tip of the crayon became too dull, I would gleefully turn the box around and bring it back to a point using the in-box sharpener. Honestly, I would sometimes purposely break the tips just to have an excuse to use the little sharpener. Once the page was colored in, I would print my name on the bottom right corner before gingerly tearing the page from its book so that I could bestow it upon the person sitting closest to me, usually Mom, Dad, or Grandma.

In high school, my friends and I got in the habit of taking coloring books and crayons with us to class. After our work was completed, we'd move our desks together and pass around the books and flip through them until we found a page we liked. In addition to the glorious box of 64 Crayola Crayons (with the built-in sharpener, of course), we now had many other types of crayons at our disposal - neons, jewel colors, glow-in-the-dark, and glitter. The simple past-time we enjoyed as children had taken on a more glamorous flavor, but no matter the color or type of crayon we used, that familiar, safe, comforting scent remained the same.

At 27, my coloring books and crayons have been replaced by my computer and digital camera. In my photography, the lines have been traced and the colors have been filled in for me - more beautifully and perfectly than I could ever dare attempt. Photography is my escape from the responsibilities that come with being an adult. Bills, work, family issues, love life (or a lack thereof)... do we ever get a break from worrying about these things? Through my camera, I allow myself to get away from it all and focus on the tiny details I compose in the viewfinder. I get lost in the scenes I frame and capture.

Even still, though, sometimes I need a deeper escape, and it's during those times I go to the closet and pull out my box of Crayola Crayons. Instead of 64 Different Brilliant Colors, I now have 96 (including Radical Red, Outrageous Orange, and Purple Pizazz - colors that certainly did not exist in my first box of 64!), and of course I still have that sharpener... and the scent. The scent that allows me to forget about everything "now" and remember everything "then"... even if just for a little while.

Now, I must excuse myself, for I see a few crayons that are in desperate need of sharpening before I begin to fill in the shapes on the page that lay here before me on the table.

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