Why Pure Crayola?

When I was very young, my parents decided I needed a down comforter for my bed, so they took me to a big specialty store somewhere in the Mid-Wilshire part of Los Angeles, which was how it was done back then. I was only four or five years old, and way too little to see the many choices up on the high shelves, so the salesman put me on his shoulders, and I found myself rising face to face with dozens of neatly stacked shiny satin comforters, in a bountiful array of colors. Delighted and astonished by the way this looked, and getting high on that moment of “freedom to choose,” I landed on the perfect age appropriate metaphor, referencing that moment when you first open a brand new box of crayons, and proclaimed “IT”S PURE CRAYOLA.” The adults thought that was funny, but then insisted that I choose only one, which was fairly challenging. I chose pale lavender, which did not fit the modernist guidelines for color in our home, but nonetheless seemed to be allowed.