Thursday, July 14, 2011

if i could paint my life

what color would it be?  so many things have passed; the colors that i see.  the green of my youth.  those "tween" years that i stumbled through.  wishing only to fit in with the city people but surrounded by country folk.  no pink.  the color of spend-the-night parties with your best girlfriends.  laughing and giggling all through the night.  just the same green that spoke of a different time that most had left behind.  the bright neon colors when the fair came to town and how i wished to go with friends and be part of such a big crowd.  the loudness of it all covered in cotton candy and popcorn.  white lights blinking rides to the screams of so many kids you couldn't begin to count them all.  it only lasted a week at most but i missed it when it was gone.  those were the years i picked red tomatoes until i thought i would die if i had to look at another one.  and yet that same green i walked through everyday no matter what i had to do.  the muted colors of fresh grown vegetables that i knew my school mates would never see but only for a can on a pantry shelf.  i hated those days.  they were either long and hot or dark and cold.  that long clay driveway staring at the country road i lived on.  even the house was green.  a cedar tree was our christmas tree and it hurt to decorate and hurt worse to "un" decorate.  but it smelled good.  i just didn't know it.  those were the days of hand-me-downs that were either too big or too small and all the wrong colors.  i left those behind not soon enough.  racing towards the big city with nothing to hang on to.  only the dismal blue of depression i had known as a child before those teen years.  i fell right back into the dust of that blueness.  nothing had changed but the color.  i was still all alone in my world.  i hated the blue more than the green that held me back from fun and laughter and never knowing i could have had a chance if only someone had paid attention.  a shattered world surrounded me regardless of how hard i tried.  it wasn't mine to begin with.  it was someone elses.  but it rained on me.  i ran from the blue so long it seemed to never stop.  i only ended up decorating a new home with blue carpet.  it was the color at the time.  everyone was doing blue and i hated it.  but it was the color you see.  if you didn't have blue, that country blue, your decor was questionable.  and then i painted yellow walls to ease the pain.  for awhile it eased the pain.  then we moved.  and then we moved again.  and again.  the green came back in a darker shade.  i fancied myself a decorator with a new palette.  upon my word i changed the shade and intertwined my life to suit my being.  color became my friend.  i added the red i had once hated.  but as i said i changed the shade.  how well it suited me and looked on by others.  i was a trophy wife as long as i didn't speak.  just like a child who is seen but not heard.  how i changed the color to keep me sane i'll never know.  but it sold.  it sold so well i lost it all.  next!  another long clay driveway staring at the country road i lived on.  i hung onto that green but i couldn't shake the blue.  it followed me like an abyss waiting for me to go ahead and fall into that black bottomless pit never to return to paint my life over again.  how does one paint over their life again?  where is the rainbow of our lives only to show for a moment what was, what is, what will.  a promise from god to heal the devastation of the worst colors we live.  i've painted buckets and buckets full over and over.  swirling my brush to cover the hurt.  the loss.  the eccentricities of my life show now for all those who look and see.  shades of who i am good or bad.  somewhere in between.  the twinkle of a sparkler on the 4th of july.  wearing a blue shirt with an american flag.  those red stripes reminding me of those red tomatoes and the blue a bluer blue for me to see.  a brighter sky with a yellow sun instead of yellow walls to pretend all is well.  the shade of green has changed again and is better than just a tree.  the bluer walls with a rainbow grace my home as a little red plane flies towards the sun.  the pink is in keeping for a childhood not known.  beside the orange and the purple an antique settee squires a tapestry to hold it all in place.  a cross between chili pepper and poppy red bring back my memories.  times meant not to forget but to remember was not so bad.  i was safe and that was all.  i may have needed more.  but the green returns to tell me i always had much more.
All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt. Charles M. Schulz