My 1960s childhood home was furnished with mid-century classic pieces. Wood chairs with brown and gold-striped cushions, a conservative couch of muted browns and oranges, a hardly memorable kitchen table. Sometime in the shift between the 60s and 70s, the carpet became avocado green in the living room, yellow and brown swirly carpet in the kitchen with blue counter tile, and I slept in a hot pink canopy bed with pink carpeted floors. In the 70s that bedroom changed to yellow and the pink canopy gave way to a brass headboard and lots of hanging plants in macrame.
The house entryway was decorated in smoky glass mirrors Mom installed herself. My memories are clear of standing in the hardware store picking out the boxes, bringing them home and watching Mom create an art installation.
In 1982, the house had been decorated and redecorated so many times, it was time to move (among other reasons). With so many years of experience, Mom's decorating tastes had refined. Her new home was monochromatic: picture a winter scene. The colorless environment was interrupted by hits of metal. It suited Mom after the subdued early sixties, the psychedelic latter sixties, and the 1970s clash of color and taste.
When I had a house to furnish, I chose color but it was subdued and calm, but most of the time there wasn't a choice and we purchased according to budget. There were a few choices I look back upon and shudder: the emerald-bluish couch. I went through my own monochromatic stage too. The evidence is still in the living room.
The day came when I craved color and contrast. Amber wood floors, white cabinets, blue walls. Baby blue couches, a navy blue chair. Bright color-striped rugs. Dining room benches of chartreuse green.
After living 24 years in a 35 year old house, this years' discontent and home-bound living required a shift of color...and I wondered, How did I live for so long with a pink and taupe master bath? With brown bedroom walls?
After seven months of demolition, of finding workers, plumbers, painters, living with a bathtub in our bedroom, Tony said, "I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel."
My greatest appreciation at the near-end of another remodel is for color. A thousand shades of blue that change with the slightest shift in light. I love the grey veins in a piece of marble; the garish oranges, reds, blacks, and blues in metal boxed shelves; the translucent blue soap in a flashy silver dish. Even my garden tomato cages are bright greens, yellows, and pinks. When I pulled them out of the garden in yesterday's sombre, cloud-covered skies, the contrast lifted my spirits as did the red-turned strawberry leaves.
Oh how I love color! Variegated, bold, soft, translucent, shiny, sparkly, nature colors that the best imagination and paint can hardly mimic.
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I happened upon a video of a young boy sitting in a classroom among his peers, his teacher, his mom. The boy was color blind, and he was about to put on a pair of glasses that would allow him to see color for the first time...
...he slipped them on to his face, took them off... and wept at the surprise and splendor of color...flabbergasted...he put them back on, stood up and walked to the periodic table poster on the wall. It was coded in color. The boy felt wonder and joy, and I think everyone in that room, everyone who watches the video, is infected with color-wonder and love-for-color.
The color-brilliance of this morning's sky.
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