I tend to live my life by colors.
I learned from a very young age which were "my colors". I remember someone commenting on a pastel, velour number from my Cheer-Dance recital in 1st grade, identifying that pastels were best suited for me. I rejected their Easter Egg vibrance and gravitated toward the deep fall tones that I so craved to wrap myself in.
When I first got the notion that the permanent gray sky of a New England winter may have an effect on my depression, I fell in love with a particular shade of celery green and insisted on letting it grace my bedroom walls. It kept the sadness away even on the darkest of days. It has since been painted over with charcoal gray and I worry about returning to stay there for a month and a half in the coldest part of the year.
My Mother and I have always argued the language and semantics of colors. What I may call "red", she will pretend that she doesn't understand until I revise my statement to include the phrase "terra cotta". While I could quip that due to differentiating number of cones in our eyes, my "red" may very well be your "terra cotta", it has never seemed worth the effort.
I study others in a sort of makeshift, human paint-by-number. I see one set of lips, red and swollen from the wind or kissing; I may never know the truth. I see two eyes, possibly the hazel of a New Hampshire forest scene or the brown of a comforting cup of coffee on a Sunday morning. I see countless strands of hair that resemble a field of wheat, even though you insist you would prefer if to look like a raging fire.
And how can you not direct yourself by hue? If I pass the blue house on the corner, I know I have to turn left. If I've made it to the gray-green room in the gallery, my favorite painting should be just up ahead.
I don't need others to see colors the same way I do; that would be asking a lot scientifically speaking. All I hope is that someone else lives their life by color and that they might just understand.
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