The Magic of Fingerpaint

Growing up in a big family, I’ve learned that little kids always have something to teach us. From the fact that the spin cycle on a washing machine will not make red crayons dizzy but will in fact make your pet cat dizzy to the process of loving and accepting others, I’ve learned almost all of my most important life lessons from children younger than me. There are a few things I have learned of which I am absolutely certain, and those are the facts that life is messy, life is colorful, and sometimes life is sticky, but you just have to dig your whole fist into it and paint. As hard as you try you’ll never succeed and truly be happy if you color inside the lines.

In these ways, life is like fingerpaint. Fingerpaint is one of the greatest inventions of all-time and acts not only as a tool of art but as a stress reliever, an educational tool, and a medium of self-realization and expression.

When happy, emotional, or particularly philosophical fingerpaint acts as one of the most-hands on, both literally and figuratively, forms of expression. In times of extreme rage and anger, the absolute best feeling in the world is to slap into a big and gooey jug of paint. It won’t get mad at you for hitting it, it will enjoy it, it will probably even provide you with a pretty picture to go along with the experience. Nothing is more fun than teaching a child letters, numbers, and colors using a big ol’ washable glob of your favorite color. And everyone’s seen those shows where the therapist holds up a completely ridiculous looking glob of ink and uses the patients response to analyze his or her entire life. You know what that sounds like to me? The magic of fingerpaint.

Things always seem simpler and easier for little kids, but maybe that’s just because they know how to handle it. Meds and therapy are expensive and often painful. Fingerpaint is cheap, fun, and the effects can be recycled if necessary. So I’ll go through life, or at least the near future, with a handful of children climbing on my back, a collection of freshly painted presents on my walls, and a jar of paint in my bag. The children will grow and the pictures will change but that fingerpaint will remain as an eternal remedy for the bad, celebration of the good, and all-around favorite pastime. I will continue to learn new lessons from the magical concoction, and always remember the most important one.

As hard as you try and as smooth and simply you try to paint you’ll never succeed if you color inside the lines.