I've been thinking about what an array of colors and emotions and speech bubbles the comic of our lives would be every single day we live. From drab, almost lifeless grays to the indescribable color of the way that love feels, or the way youthful silliness does. The colors would be warm, those last two, wouldn't you think? But that's where color and feeling can be deceptive - that's why feeling can't be explained with color. Love can be red and white and golden and bright, but the color could scare you if you saw black and blue and bruised-purple, or confuse you if you saw earth browns and tans and greens; that doesn't mean it isn't the color of love, you just have to step back and understand that color-feeling isn't based on stereotype and badly-written stories, color-feeling is like life: limitless in its vibrancy and palette.

Youthful silliness is another good example: youth seems light, bright, finger-paint primaries; yellows, pinks and bright blues; pastels, chocolate, sunshine. Silliness is rainbow-balloons and crayons, bright-snot-green and trees painted purple. But tonight, for me, it wasn't. Tonight the color of my youthful silliness was black and brown and gray and street-lamp orange; the red of a lit cigarette and the tan of a bunny-rabbit sitting in the snow patiently as we (meaning I) held a conversation. Color floods the world we know and completely torrents emotions as we know them, because no one really feels in color - but maybe we should. How would the world be different if more people thought in color? How would emotions change if we realized what color they were? How would colors change if we all realized that bright yellow doesn't always mean sunshine and baby-ducks and tulips?

I sat in my car for five minutes screaming fuck at the top of my lungs because I got myself stuck in the snow and was late to work. My body ached because of a typical, not-much-you-can-do winter virus and sleeping badly. I felt unmotivated and tired at work; though I do love my job, everyone just has those days.

I drank steamed soy milk and had a happy tummy. I received a whole little bag full of my favorite candy from my Secret Santa. I was happy to see I've still got a friend I'd feel horrible to lose. I talked to my dad and he made everything okay, the way he often has a knack to do.

And it all lead me to thinking about color-feelings, a term I probably didn't make up before anyone, but did tonight for my own convenience. I wish, when I die, there isn't some Heaven or Hell or unknowable afterlife waiting for me. I'd just like to be handed the comic-version of my life, and to know I was right and see that the pages are all colored in the ways I thought they should be - not sadness-blue, or happiness-yellow, but in every color imaginable in places we never really thought they would appear.

Labels: color-feelings, free write