Today I am brown

Do you pick your clothes by color each day? I do. I mean, not always. Some mornings it's just - I can wear these black jeans one more day before they havet to go in the laundry, so the first t-shirt I can find that goes with black jeans - that's the winner.

But at least half the time, I wake up and think 'What do I feel like today?'

Some days a color jumps out immediately. RED. I definitely feel RED today. Then it's just a matter of putting together a RED ensemble.

Some times I'm not sure. And then I have to audition things. BLUE maybe? GREEN? ORANGE? PURPLE? Not all colors have equal favor in my personal wardrobe palette. I tend a lot towards BLACK, GREEN, and RED. For some reason I also seem to have a lot of PINK. Light PINK in the dark months, bright PINK in the sunny half of the year. Not sure what's up with the PINK thing. 'Cuz I'm not really much of a pastel person. More nature colors or zany brights. And speaking of brights, I like ORANGE a lot lately, too.

I remember waking up one morning about.... I don't know, a year? A year and a half? Two years after Joshua died? I can't remember now. I try not to keep too much track of sad anniversaries. The dates of it, not the experiences themselves. But anyway, I woke up and realized I very specifically need to wear an ORANGE shirt. Not just wanted to. NEEDED to! HAD to! The thing was, I didn't happen to own an ORANGE shirt at the time.

So, I called up my friend Deb and told her I was going shopping for an ORANGE shirt and did she want to come along for the trip? Being a good friend, the kind that knows me well enough not to be surprised by this sort of request, she came along. Unfortunately Susanville is NOT the shopping capital of the world, and my search was short and not very successful. I found something that "would do", but I didn't find what I was really looking for, although I knew I'd know it the minute I saw it.

I also knew WHY I needed an ORANGE shirt. It made complete and immediate sense to me. I was tired of being sad. Tired and sort of angry, but not in bad way. In a "I'm tired of this sh*t and I'm not gonna be like this all the time anymore" way. RED seemed to angry. YELLOW seemed to happy, too carefree. ORANGE was just right (said Baby Bear). Since then, of course, I've come across numerous shirts that were just what I was looking for that particular day. Of course I have to buy them. Now I have MANY ORANGE shirts. And they usually make me feel happy, in a defiant, grateful, and at the same time, calm way. Odd combination of emotions, I know, but it works for me.

Colors have meaning to me, but they're personal, and they aren't always the same meaning on any given day. And there's my mood to factor in - so the meaning ends up coming out of a blending of the color itself and the way I feel on that particular day. I might feel sort of down in the dumps, and so BLUE or GRAY will seem depressing and joyless to me. On another day, when I wake up feeling restless or agitated about life, GRAY will feel restful and meditative, like the ocean on a stormy day, or BLUE will feel expansive and peaceful, like the endless sky across the chaparral. When I wear BLACK, sometimes I'm saying "I'm Bohemian cool, baby, dig it?" other days I'm saying "Back off, do not mess with this bitch today." I might pick RED because I'm feeling like living outloud, or I might pick RED because I need a burst of color to help me get to a place where I feel like that.

Hmmm, interesting, now that I'm giving it some thought, I realize GREEN is sort of my center color. GREEN doesn't make me feel more one way or another, it is just ME. When I wear GREEN, whether it be a deep pine GREEN or a wacky lime GREEN, I just feel comfortable in my skin. Maybe GREEN is my true color. Think Kermit - It's not easy being GREEN. Think Elphaba - defying gravity whatever the cost. Think Hedgewitch - GREEN magic. Okay, enough with the GREEN. Because suddenly the word is looking really strange. You know how that happens. You write or say a word too many times and suddenly it sounds unfamiliar or wrong in some way?

I don't wear PASTELS a lot. Or BEIGE. I don't think I have the skin coloring for them, mainly. Plus, sort of blah. Why bother. Other colors I like, but don't have a lot of for no particular reason. CRANBERRY and YELLOW are nice colors but just show up as accents mainly. PURPLE. I like it. Used to not like it. I have it in my wardrobe now at least. It's actually growing on me. And showing up in all it's many varieties - PLUM, FUSCHIA, PERIWINKLE, LAVENDER, EGGPLANT.

Today though, I am BROWN. I don't wear BROWN a lot either, or rather, I didn't. For some reason I seem to be acquiring more BROWN. It was actually one of those mornings where I started out just trying to use the BROWN corduroy pants for one more day, but after I was walking around in my outfit for a bit, I realized I was feeling sort of BROWN. Woodsy. Earthy. Fertile with opportunities. Down to earth and practical. A Laume Tree. In my RED shoes (er, can't be ALL BROWN), HOT COCOA colored socks, dark BROWN cord pants, long sleeve t-shirt that's a swirl of TAN, BROWN, RUST, GOLD, a bit of BLUE, and a new dark BROWN cardigan. I'm also wearing Rosie, my little monkey girl, who climbed up into the Laume tree to sleep, snug in my branches.

Sigh. That's the end of my wardrobe musings. This Laume tree now has to pull up her roots from this computer forest, transform into Laume car and go up to Coppervale to be Laume mom, waiting for William and his buddies to be done snowboarding. Where I'm sure, the color of choice will be WHITE. Which, unfortunately I can't type IN color because then you couldn't read it. So, you'll have to imagine WHITE. Snowy hills. Snowy trees. Snowy snowboards. Snowy kids. Snowy roads. No, wait. Scratch that last one. Although, unfortunately, I heard that the roads WERE snowy. I better go. Drive snow. I mean, slow.