The Walternative
I attended Kindergarten in Panama, a time and place I wish I remembered better. There I remember my class being handed coloring pages along with crayons. I remember there being a frog on my page and casually reaching for the yellow crayon. It wasn't until my teacher asked me if I wanted a new coloring page did I think that there was anything wrong with what had transpired: I colored my frog yellow. I was the only one to color my frog anything other than green. The possibility is massive that something else happened and my 5 year old brain didn't catch it, but to my best understanding, that is the only reason she might have taken my sheet when I was coloring as neatly as anyone else. I don't believe I drew any offensive language, to this day I don't use profane language. So she had to have taken it because I drew my frog differently, right?
It was the first moment I really felt an uncomfortable sense of dissonance with my observed reality. Every children's book has their frogs colored green, I know this. Most frogs are green, I think so. However, I'd seen frogs in person at that point, and I'd only ever seen them in one color: YELLOW! So I applied that hue onto the colorless amphibian because it reminded me of the fun mountain walk I took with my family, where we came across the yellow frogs, which I would later learn are literally the national animal of Panama.
For years, I wondered why my teacher would single me out. I always dislike when people do that sort of indirect dismissal because it leaves you questioning yourself. The worst of all is times like this because even if I knew the problem, I would still stand by said problem, you know? Add in the fact that the national animal is literally a specially colored golden frog, I feel like this trend of educational hand-holding is an issue. Now I'm thinking of the fact that there could have been a lesson there about the country! I was in Panama because of my dad and his US military obligations, so this feels like the heart and soul of where I was geographically was being stripped for the normalcy of the rest of the world, or at the very least, America.
This is one of my favorite stories to tell with regards to my development as a creative. Having an alternative perspective. Fighting against convention and being audacious. Simply using a different crayon. These are the energies I try to channel through my designs and creations. If you've never heard this one before, I'm glad you made the time to read it here.
Speaking of Yellow, I have a book full of 'em. ;)
