True Colors

The world is made up of so many variances of color. I’m amazed at how many Crayola Crayons there are. Sunsets, rainbows, oceans, mountains, flowers, the list goes on and on. Everywhere a person looks there is color. Lush green grass across the open expanse in the park or soft white snow blanketing the countryside fields. Color fills our life every single day. And still there are colors we can’t see like ultraviolet and infrared, and people with different forms of color blindness, and people who are completely blind, all unable to see the splendor surrounding them. And even still yet with all the people that can see, a large extent of most people takes seeing for granted. How many golden hour sunsets pass us by, how many flowers are overlooked, how many eyes are not looked into. What color of eyes does your best friend have? What is the color of aqua do you see when that comes to mind? Made you think. All for the purposes of sharing a moment of time in order to be aware of the vibrancy around you. Nature is full of color on this green and blue planet. And people are actually full of color as well.

People can make you see red when they cut you off in traffic or are rude at the store. We can see bright sunshine in the reflection of someone’s eyes when they smile. We can see blue when someone is sad or under the weather. Color encompasses our daily life around us in a plethora of ways. Be mindful, be aware of what you’re seeing, take note, take time and acknowledge that color is a gift. Color can tell us if something is bad for us, like the color of a toxic frog, the color of a poisonous mushroom. And it can bring us a sense of peace as in the soft hues of pastels. Color is alive in each and every one of us. We wear clothes that exemplify what we may feel or want to feel. We buy food because of the aesthetic of its making or packaging. We pick a certain color of car, so on and so forth. Color is huge part of our lives. My question to ponder is this; are we living in our true colors and do we see the true colors of those around us, or are we masked and shaded with colors that hide us, blend us and don’t draw attention to? Do we not take the time and effort to see what’s around us or do we just hurriedly go about our business and as time goes on the colors get grayer and grayer. Life becomes muddled in the doldrums of everyday living and just trying to get by for one more week, one more day. We start losing sight of all the colors that are available to us. Until we don’t see any more at all.

Then something happens, something gets our attention, and we are thrust back into the world of color. Usually this is a good thing. A sunset, a rainbow, the universe sharing with us, “hey, take a moment, there is something here for you to see”. Sometimes it’s to force our awareness, like the deep crimson of blood when you have cut your finger. But it’s all still trying to share with you a moment of awareness that can last a nano second or last a lifetime. I personally love seeing all the colors around me and yet I still find myself in the dark and the absence of color way more often than I would like. It’s difficult when we’re in the midst of a storm and all it’s dark, foreboding grayness and blackness to find or even seek out the color that is still present, but it’s there, nonetheless. And it’s imperative that we do understand even in that moment of time, black and white are colors too. We live with every shade and tone of color in our lives. Some we see vibrantly, automatically. Some we take for granted, some we miss altogether. But the color of life is always present. What colors do you choose to see, what spectrum are you allowing in? There is much more to see if only one lets color permeate their soul. Open those windows, those gateways that sit at the top of your face and see the world around you in a way you have never seen it before. It may just change how you look at things.