Colors

I thought I would do something a little different today to help inspire some creativity within me, seeing as I feel creatively dehydrated with my writing lately. I want to write, but nothing comes to mind. Maybe this little exercise will help. I got this book last weekend that has different creative writing ideas to help get the flow going.

I just stumbled across this one: Make two lists, one of colors that attract you and one of colors that repel you. Choose a color from each list. Approach each of them from your other senses; how do these colors sound, smell, taste, and what is their texture?

Colors I'm drawn to:
Light aqua blue
Lavendar
Deep valentine red
Forest Green


Colors I'm not so crazy for:
Neon orange
Most shades of yellow
Grey

Light aqua blue reminds me of peace, serenity, pastel colored houses in Seaside, Florida, tastes like a warm comforting cup of Chamomile tea. It sounds like waves of the ocean crashing on a sandy secluded shore. It reminds me of glowing candles burning in my apartment on a lazy afternoon. It says, "No worries" and lets me do whatever will let me be free. It's as soft and salty as a freshly made oversized pretzel. Cool as a cup of frozen yogurt being eaten atop a desolate rooftop. Refreshing as a subtle summer breeze, wisps of stray hairs gently tickling my cheek.

Lavendar is my grandmother Crooker incarnate. Lavendar lilacs in bloom, lavendar incense, an atypical color to associate with a hippie like kind of love. It is a rare and glorious shortlived summer sunset to be savored. It tastes of Cracker Barrel Vermont cheese melted on toast. It looked like a tiny kitchen in Derry in the 1980's and always sounds like Narn's laughter. This color is my legacy.

Deep valentine red looks like my alter ego, but really is my passions. My pulsating heart, my femme fatale wannabe painted fingernails, the wild adventurous woman inside me. The occasional thunderstorm, followed by a rainbow. It is a voyeur of stories and emotional drives. Tastes bitter and smooth like the best of margaritas, exotic like Spanish tapas. Thick and gooey cookie batter, gluttony in disguise.

Forest green is miles of unknown territory, like a picture taken in the middle of nowhere, Michigan on a wintery day of 2007. It is natural, crunchy granola getting stuck against and in between my teeth. It warns everyone to take care of this fragile home of Earth. It can be seen every time there are tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis. It looks like running a marathon, sweat dripping down a runner's neck, swallowing a tall glass of cold water. Replenishing, refreshing, reinventing.

Neon orange carpet circa 1970's smells like pot and lacks original thought. It resembles an era marked by disco and psychedelic drugs. Confused, hairy hippie folks and cheesy so called 'horror' films. Neon orange tastes like artificial cheese squirted out of a can, sister to its brother: Spam. It is a lonely old widow's comfort coat, something that makes a person lose all sense of fashion after the age of 60. It feels like long fingernails being scraped down down down the classroom chalkboard. It screams, "Stop torturing me!"

Most shades of yellow is the urine I used to collect at my drug counseling job. Pale yellow indicated more healthy, brighter yellow dehydration and other potential problems. Its stale smell makes me cringe and reminds me of the homeless stinky crazies on the Chicago Red Line L train. Tastes like sunflower seeds scattered across the sticky floors of the CTA. It sounds like a series of non sequiturs when you're just trying to travel without being bothered. A magic eight ball that declares "Outlook very bleak."

Grey is a conformist, neither here nor there. Charcoal, dust, a wasteland of indecision. An actor's happy and gloomy mask, never revealing its true colors or uniqueness. Bloody like a T-Bone steak cooked medium rare, tough trying to cut through the thick layer to get to the real meat of things. "I wear many masks," it likes to say. Initially appealing to those that don't favor black and white, but it feels stuck in the midst. The spines of a fork in any road. A lost highway less interesting than David Lynch.