Like stories, quests are contained. They have a beginning, a middle, and an end. This story has one such quest, but the other is not, because it is a quest to battle anxiety. I do not say defeat anxiety, because it is not something that can be defeated like one would slay a dragon. It is part of the daily, ongoing quest that is called living. Most mental health problems are like this; they cannot be fought and "cured," only tamed.
Quests are also like stories because most stories, and especially those from mythology, are about quests. A hero goes on a journey, to find, to capture, or to kill, and eventually to return. These days, our heroes are found in books and movies, and our quests are found in video games, in which you are the hero and you complete the quests.
Most importantly, quests have a purpose, a goal. This is why stories and myths appeal to us: they bring meaning and order to life, which is inherently meaningless and purposeless. (If you disagree with me that life has no over-arching purpose -- as opposed to the small purposes that motivate the actions of living things -- that will have to be a discussion for another day.)
So anyway, I got this adult coloring book.
Jigsaw puzzles are my favorite anxiety-reducing pastime, but they take up a lot of space and aren't very portable. Though to be honest, my absolute favorite way of dealing with anxiety is computer games, but sometimes they have too much associated guilt (as in, "I really shouldn't be playing video games"). Which means sometimes they only reduce anxiety for the duration of time I play them and increase it the rest of the time. So sometimes I need a stress-reducing activity that I not only enjoy, but is grandma-approved. Hence jigsaw puzzles.
Anyway, adult coloring books have been getting good reviews, so when my mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday months ago, that's what I said.
It turns out she probably forgot even having that conversation, because she asked me again just a few days before my birthday. Annoyed, instead of reminding her of what I actually wanted, I told her I wanted World Peace.
This is what I have to show for my snark:
I have to say, it is one of her better gifts.
But now I really wanted an adult coloring book. Could I buy one online? There's no Norway branch of Amazon, so I would have to try to avoid customs fees and pay international shipping. Blargh.
This is where the anxiety beast rears its ugly head. It is always there, curled up in the corner, but now it lifts its head and turns to me, snorting in a condescending way. It is visually striking, very pointy, and red; not really ugly, exactly. Its ugliness is on the inside.
The quest that is not a quest has now taken shape. I want to do a thing that should be a reasonably stress-free thing to do, but anxiety gets in the way. Sometimes that just happens. Sometimes your brain turns mundane things into huge, large, BFDs. Or, at least my brain does. (The anxiety beast is in my mind of course, because it is mine; it is me.) And when this happens, to cut out the "I should be able to do this normal adult thing what is wrong with me?" voice, it helps to think of these as a quest, because quests have a goal, a purpose, and there is loot at the end.
I fully expected to have this on my To Do list for a long time, because dealing with customs or venturing into a new place in search of goods or services are exactly the types of things that give me anxiety, which means I avoid them. (I usually go an unnecessarily long time between hair cuts for just this reason.) Perhaps I am a hobbit at heart and do not like going on adventures. But this quest was for something to help with anxiety, which would help me complete more quests! What to do?
It turns out, this adventure was unexpectedly easy. I avoid the eyes of the anxiety beast. I wander into a local book store, which has plenty of adult coloring books. I pick one. I spend a long time choosing colored pencils. The anxiety beast flicks its tail with impatience. A shorter, but not small, amount of time choosing between two sharpeners. Everything seems as expensive as ordering online with customs and shipping would have been. I worry over that for a bit. I buy them anyway.
The loot is better than I could have hoped. The coloring book is also a treasure hunt, with 16 rabbits, 14 butterflies, 9 spiders, etc. hidden in its pages. (Plus I learn the Norwegian for spiders, "edderkopper," which reminds me of the part in The Hobbit when he's taunting the spiders in Mirkwood with "Addercrop", which makes this "Magical Forest" coloring book even more magical.)
It gets better. Flipping back and forth, I notice that the pages seem to be connected - a picture of a telescope is followed by a zoomed-in image of the Castle, which is at the end of the book. The back has some pages that can be folded out, which I start to do, but first I translate:
"Turn the next page to find out what is hidden in the castle."
Should I wait until I'm done coloring to see? Then the page before:
"Fill in the nine symbols to unlock the castle door."
Wait a minute.
This coloring book is a quest!
(This is the part of the story with an actual quest. Hooray, you found it!)
Like all good quests, it starts with a map:
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| From "Den magiske skogen" by Johanna Basford |
The map is representative of what you will find on your journey through the pages of the Magical Forest on your way to the Castle: a tree-house village; a lake; a rabbit hole; a hedge maze. I decide to finish it in pieces as I finish the full pages, starting with the compass:
It turns out, these leaves and things are tiny. Coloring this takes a long-ass time, but of course there's no rush. And it takes even longer, because I find myself deliberating over what color to use, like, a lot. I've turned the color choices into a BFD: "I can't make all the leaves green, that would be boring. But leaves aren't orange (and I hate orange anyway!) But wait, leaves can be orange in the Autumn... and these diamond-shaped leaves are magical so they can be blue, and otherwise I wouldn't use blue very much anyway.... but I fucked up with those mushrooms, I should have kept them red...." And so on.
It may sound like coloring is giving me anxiety, but it is not as bad as all that. Sure, every time I have to make a decision, like what color to use for this very special leaf, the anxiety beast lifts an eyebrow as if to say, "Really? That one?" (Did I mention it had eyebrows?) But it's okay. In a coloring book, there is no danger of making myself believe these choices will have a huge effect on my life or alter the course of reality, which I tend to do for other decisions. If my brain is going to turn things into a BFD anyway, it is safe to do so within the pages of the Magical Forest.
It has just occurred to me how different this is from jigsaw puzzles. Maybe those allow my brain a safe space to figure everything out, because unlike life, there is a correct configuration of puzzle pieces, a right answer, and you just have to be smart and patient enough to find it. Maybe jigsaw puzzles help with a different type of anxiety beast. (That one is blue.)
The coloring book also allows you to be creative and to imprint your own meaning, tell your own story. So if I want to turn the compass into a symbol of the yearly cycle, that's exactly what I'll do.
