A life in color

A life spent in color.  

What color is my favorite? Which one describes my life, my thoughts, my spirit? As someone who thinks and dreams in color, works in color and lives each day in the nuances of every value, shade and tint of color, it seems impossible to choose.

my taboret at the end of a full day of painting

My story is green like the marsh grass, ever changing from the palest blue green that springs from the pluff mud, to the strong stalks of golden green covered in tiny snails seeking sunlight, to the brilliance of the tips waving pinkish green in the wind.  I am the strong dark green of oak leaves, blue-black in the shade and deep orange green in the late afternoon sunlight. I am the true emerald of the resurrection fern, lush and magical but apt to disappear without notice. I am in the milky, soft olives of the abundant moss that rests nearby. I am the tart chartreuse of spring and the silvery sage of winter; the growing and dying and growing again that green represents.

I am the blue of the sky and the creek water below.  Sapphire and cobalt and teal and palest robins egg blue.  I am the navy horizon line of the ocean, the transparent turquoise that catches sunlight at the top of a wave and the softness of the foam stretched out sleeping on the sand.  I am the brilliance of the jay, commanding and strong and the quiet gray blue of dusk as it fades into darkness.  I am the morning that begins as deep purple and ends as yellow, encompassing a rainbow of hues but always knowing itself to be blue. I am the midnight indigo giving the moon and stars a place to rest. Like blue, I am cold and steely and warm and generous, ever fluid as the sky and the sea.

I am the white hot lemon of the sun and the warm butterscotch glow of the full moon. I am the marigold of the sunrise and the peach of the sunset.  I am the softness of the yellow bellied flycatcher and the brightness of the tiny golden crowned kinglet. I am in the upturned faces of the summer flowers, the warm ochres of the goldenrod, and the carpet of dying leaves underfoot woven in oranges and siennas.  I am the energy, the light and the heat that yellow brings, searching each day for sunlit happiness.

I am red.  A blaze of deep ruby seeking to be noticed and the reticent soft blush of a hidden rosebud.   I am the deep scarlet of the horizon at day’s end and the fuchsia warning of the morning sky before a storm, demanding to be heard and heeded.  I find myself in the fire red of the poison ivy creeping up the pine tree in the fall and the kaleidoscope of zinnias spilling out of the flowerbed in the spring. I am the excess of the cardinal, the softness of the robin and the extravagance of the roseate spoonbill. I am showy and wild and a blaze of emotion.

But the true color of my life is gray. I am a silver cloud, folding in purples and blues and greens in my shadows, my edges lit by yellow and orange and pink. Always moving. Always shapeshifting and searching for the light.  Never just black or white. But I am a lifetime of the movement and memory of color.

** thanks to Janisse Ray, who sent my mind down this winding road.