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My Favorite Color
All the shades of blue
I suppose blue is my favorite color — the clear blue of a sun-filled sky. The sparking blue of a pristine Caribbean Sea. The soft, comforting blue of a plush towel. The serene blue of fresh, crisp bed-sheets. My husband’s eyes.
But blue has many sides. It can be calm and temperate. It can be sky and ocean. But it can also be sad. And while I gravitate towards blue as a color, I can also relate to blue the emotion.
As a hue, blue can be beautiful. As a mood, blue can be lonely and bleak. It is an emptiness — an absence of joy, hope, and possibly even gratitude. Blue can be a pessimistic shade.
It seems a bit odd, and perhaps unfair, that we should ask blue to do so much — to represent sky, sea, and sadness. Why not gray? It’s already associated with dreary days. Or how about black — the absence of all colors of light?
Or perhaps it is precisely because of blue’s duality that I am so drawn to it. Perhaps it is useful to have one color for the heavens, the ocean, and the full spectrum of depression. Blue is not a shallow or a superficial color. It can express the deep or a great expanse. It can be light or dark — bearable or burdensome. It can color the easy as well as the heavy. It can be tinged with elation or despair.
