Coloring

The sun rises, and I with him everyday. As the Sun's sister Dawn, the one with rosy fingers, golden arms and saffron-colored robe, opens the gates to let her brother out and herself in, I move toward the bus stop. And every morning, as the bus slowly speeds up, I can spot the deep blue of the ocean, the delicate blue and white of the sky, and the golden white of the sand on the beach. It's a vision. One thing that ruins it for me, though, is seeing a bunch of pidgeons scattered around the beach, pecking after the remains of food left behind by callous bathers. And that morning was no exception.

Until it was, of course.

Amongst all those black and grey city pidgeons, I spotted all of a sudden a smaller, very white, one. And the bus, as if it were acceding to my silent request, stopped. (Ok, it was picking up more passengers, but still...). I could take a longer look at the birds - the white one in the very center of the confusing, ever-moving, circle. They co-existed peacefully, none seeming to care that one of their own didn't quite fit in, as far as color went, in an extremely "I have a dream" fashion. I was marvelled. Yes, one could always argue that birds don't really care about colors, but that's not the point anymore. And I thought to myself that pidgeons, too, had black sheep. Only, theirs was white.
And the image of the white black sheep tormented me for the rest of the day.

And then, there are the doves. They're supposedly white and that doesn't seem to bother anyone. But why would a white pidgeon bother me so? Doves can be white, but not pidgeons? Would that be it? Why? They're practically the same bird!
Easy one: pidgeons are dirty birds - hence, cannot be white, the cleanest of the colors. Whereas doves, just as white, symbolize peace. It all falls back into place now.

Or does it?

Why does white have to necessarily symbolize cleanness and peace? What if I wanna use it to show anger? Or love? Or rotteness? Where do these frozen-in-time symbols come from? Many are obvious: red goes for blood cus blood IS red (until is starts getting maroon, than brown-ish...); green goes for ecology cus the color of "healthy" leaves is green - a priori, it depends on the plant. Yellow is for the sun - I agree in part with that one... the sun is much brighter than yellow per se. But others... there is no explanation whatsoever for some of them! Who was the first person who said: "Hmmm... I'm gonna use red to show passion!" or "Oh yeah, blue's DEFINITELY for sadness!"?

Green's always been the color of jealousy. Though this notion is as old as time itself, the first print there is on it is Shakespare's:
Iago: "O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock The meat it feeds on." (Othello, Act III, Scene III)
Jealousy: a monster? Yeah. Green? Apparently, yeah, but why? It could be any other color! Besides, jealousy can be said to be a way to show passion or love - both unanimously represented by red. Than why green, I repeat? Also: green may show envy as well.

I love colors; but they're all wrong! Yellow and orange depress me, too much pink leaves me in a bad mood, my anger is much whiter than red, my jealousy's red and blue's the one I think of when I'm happy.

Give a coloring book to a 6 year-old child. He/she will paint the trees green, sometimes they'll bother to paint the trunk brown and the leaves green, but many will paint the whole thing green and move on. The sky and the sea will be blue, the clouds white, and the sun yellow. Good.
Now give the same coloring bok to a 3, 4 year-old child. What a freaking mess that'll be! The sky might turn out pink, the trees could totally be yellow, the sun blue, the sky purple and so on. Some helping, understanding, know-it-all adult will eventually correct the child, gently pointing out that the "right" colors are not those he/she used. So much for creativity. And we still wonder why people are so mediocre nowadays.

You know what I love? Seeing those stupid stereotypes tumbling down. Red is the color of anger. Yeah, ok, try telling that to The Hulk!

This guy transforms into THIS when he's angry! He's not jealous, envious or particularly prone to defending the environment. Just plain angry.
Yellow is the color of happiness. But there was this Dutch guy in the 19th century that could paint his ear off; one day, he decided to paint some sunflowers. Cool, you think, sunflowers are so cheerful! Specially because they're yellow! Now, the painting's called "Still life in a vase with 12 sunflowers".

Happy, aye? Talk about cheerful and lively.

Shy people get really red when they're in the spotlight. Either red or pink. And for those people, we have the expression "as red as beet". Ok, except for one tiny little teensy weeny detail. Wee really... beets are purple!


And though some people take this "color stereotype breaking" thing too far...

...it's usually a relief!

People generally don't like grey, they think it's either too sad or serious. What about the grey area, where nothing's ever black nor white? My favorite place in life, there's nowhere I'd rather be.
One of my greatest friends only wears dark colors. Black, brown, dark blue and grey. It's not her creed, she's not gothic or anything, she just doesn't like light colors, end of story. But the other day, as we strolled around the shopping mall, she laid eyes on this gorgeous dress on a window shop. It was her style, through and through, it was meant to be hers! They only had it in two colors: pink and grey. I was like, yay, great, her color alright! She immediately bought the grey one. And yet... she couldn't take her mind off the pink one. She asked me about it, then she asked some other people about it, thought it over and over again in her head... in a nutshell: she came back and proudly purchased the pink dress. And u know what? It looked great! For me, she looked better in pink than in grey. She still felt awkward in it, but I was happy inside: another never-changing thing tumbling down right in front of me eyes.

In the end of the day, the world's just a huge coloring book. Life's all about being a 4 year-old.