You Can Taste a Rainbow

"I'm feeling a bit beige today Mum."  This seemingly off-the-cuff remark sparked a whole rainbow of colour-orientated thoughts about how much colour seeps its way into our lives. Looking around my slightly untidy and Sunday-a-fied living room I can see colour everywhere and even on the greyest of London days you can not turn around without taking in a variety of hues, tones and shades (even if they are shades of watery and depressing).  There is colour in our environment, we use colours in our speech and I would argue that our relationship with colour affects our choices and moods in a much more emotional way than most of us are aware of.

There are people who think in colour. That is to say, they think of one thing like a number or letter and automatically associate it with a colour: it's called synesthesia. There's an excellent book called Painting Ruby Tuesday by Jane Yardley which is about a girl who can do just this. I don’t have synesthesia, but I do feel colour has a lot more impact on me that I’ve ever thought about before. The colours I choose to wear for instance; is it because I simply like the colour? Is it that I like the look of the colour on me? Or, is it because the colour represents something to me, subliminally or conscientiously? I’m not sure whether I’ve ever been green with envy, and I don’t think even my angriest of faces could be described as a black look (mainly due to my unfortunate habit of looking like a meerkat when I try to look angry). Do I associate red with salvation because of that shiny red beacon that finally trundles round the corner just when I’m about to give up and take the underground? Are my teenage memories tinged in purple because of those purple stripes I thought looked really good painted on my bedroom wall?

On the day these questions were born I was feeling beige. The idea of feeling a colour was not something I had been dwelling on for a while, it was not a comment that had been carefully structured and planned in advance, it was just the only thing I could think to say that could describe how I felt on that particular day. It was a Tuesday, which in my view are always the worst of days and not ruby at all, but it was also a day when I could have walked naked through the office with sparklers coming out my ears and no one would have noticed. Do you recognise the feeling? You can't say anything interesting, do anything note-worthy and you feel so boring you should be employed in a sleep clinic. (I would like to make you aware out at this point I am not boring and everything I do is interesting and note worthy and I am exceptionably employable and rarely naked in public. It was just a Tuesday). 

I wanted to know if I was being unusual in letting colour enter my head to this level so I went to the newly introduced minions of knowledge - The Secretaries. "What colour are you feeling today?" Two responses of yellow - optimistic and at ease with the world. I had one green - she was hung-over, one brown - she's taken to the ridiculous habit of running around the park at lunch times and so is smelly and in need of washing. I received a very carefully thought of pastel orange - quite happy but having her vibrancy sucked out of her through sheer boredom. Most depressing was grey - mainly because it was raining but also because she only wears black and white, what does this say about her I wonder? I even had fluorescent beige, which I believe is a reference to a 90s comedy film…

What was interesting is that it was a very easy question to answer. Feeling a colour seems to be the sort of thing you are not aware of at all but when someone asks you an answer springs to mind immediately. Perhaps it's a way of organising feelings. Occasionally, there are so many emotions rushing around like spinning tops that trying to get them to stay still and arrange themselves carefully into something you can understand is impossible. But label them a colour and it's easier. For example, this very minute I am tired (indigo) and full of hay fever (icky yellow) and a bit emotional from watching I Capture the Castle and crying at the bit when Bill Nighy cries (navy blue) but enjoying writing and feeling a tad inspired and productive for the first time today (light blue) and there is definitely some worry going on about various life decisions that are in the balance, (bizarrely a shimmering silver). So, if I need to shut my mind to everything going on in there to stop myself being totally overwhelmed, I can close the door and paint it in shades of blue, with a horrible yellow doorknob for the pollen and coat it all in a glitter of worry and then I feel emotionally organised. Of course you could be reading this thinking "golly, she's gone a bit philosophical and crazy and she should stop crying at films by herself on a Sunday night". All very good points and I'm definitely starting to think the same, and maybe you don't feel the need to organise your head as I do, but I bet at some point today you'll try and work out what colour you're feeling…and I bet it makes you feel better…as long as it's not beige.