My Many Colored Days

{My Many Colored Days bracelet

Jangles ceramic beads, colored magnesite, resin and spacers from Rings & Things}

Some days are yellow.
Some are blue.
On different days I'm different too.
You'd be surprised how many ways
I change on Different Colored Days.

On Bright Red Days how good it feels
to be a horse and kick my heels!

On other days I'm other things.
On Bright Blue Days I flap my wings.

Some days, of course, feel sort of Brown.
Then I feel slow and low, low down.

Then comes a Yellow Day and Wheeee!
I am a busy, buzzy bee.

Gray Day....Everything is gray.
I watch. But nothing moves today.

Then all of a sudden I'm a circus seal!
On my Orange Days that's how I feel.

Green Days. Deep deep in the sea.
Cool and quiet fish. That's me.

On Purple Days I'm sad. I groan.
I drag my tail. I walk alone.

But when my days are Happy Pink
it's great to jump and just not think.

Then come my Black Days. MAD. And loud.

I howl. I growl at every cloud.

Then comes a Mixed-Up Day. And WHAM!

I don't know who or what I am!

But it all turns out all right, you see.

And I go back to being...me.

Wisdom from the Doctor...Seuss that is!

I love One Fish, Two Fish and those wacky Things in The Cat in the Hat. Fox in Socks was a tremendously fun read-aloud {especially that beetle battle}. And the Grinch is probably my favorite character. But My Many Colored Days is by far my favorite Seuss.

There is something so soothing about these words. I am not even bothered that the pictures are not Seussified at all {this was written before he died, but never finished until later.}I remember reciting this in the car to fussy kids. I recall learning it by heart and tucking my wee ones into bed with this rhyme running through their heads. I can still do all the inflection with this to make the words sing.

I saw a post that someone did about this book who felt that this was a slam against people of color. That referencing brown as a slow color and black as an angry hue and yellow as inherently more busy than the others was a slam against people of different races. Maybe I am naive in my thinking, but I really don't think that Dr. Seuss would have meant anything derogatory. Frankly, that floored me {and my apparently pollyanna world view}.

It is the message behind this book that gets me everytime. It is not about rainbows and horses and seals. It is not some crazy racist agenda. It is about feelings. It is about making feelings accessible and real to kids, and helping them to articulate it. It is about how color values influence and affect our moods, which is important to note for budding artists who would be reading, or having this read to them. How clever to associate colors with feelings for kids to better comprehend. I know it made discussions so much easier when my kids could say that they were having a brown sort of day or a yellow one. We don't talk that way that much anymore, but it certainly made for easier understanding in a highly visual way.

Dr. Seuss is a treasure. The words, the meanings, the colors, the playfulness... these are all things that I think we need a bit more of in our world. I, for one, am very happy that my days are Many Colored. It makes me look forward to the next color in the palette each day.

Today is a bit of a gray day outside...but inside I am longing to be blue and flap my wings.

What color are you today?

Just a reminder that the Inspired by...Dr Seuss challenge is still open. At stake is a charming little handmade book from Esther in France. One lucky random person will be the winner on April 1st (no fooling!). You have until 11:59 pm CST on March 31st to enter. Check out the information on this post for how to's. I am really looking forward to seeing how creative you can be!

Enjoy the day!