Today, I pulled out photos. My mother captured the essence of teenage rebellion and depression. We still lived in my grandmother's house. For 3 years, we moved like she was on an extended vacation. The furniture remained. The cabinet full of salt and pepper shakers gathered dust. The custom cabinets, in the dining room, were still filled with china and linens. The plastic runners had yet to lose their grip. I was looking for the colors that regularly pop up in my life. The things that define me. Humans are a collection, unlike animals. We have tangibles that we carry and discard or replace. These pictures look like a mess to my mother. They look like who I've always been to me. Neat wasn't my style. I am all about comfort. I knew where my things were, despite what it looks like. I see where I recycled a big plastic jug into a fish bowl. I see where I stole a favorite laden to care for it. The basket of smell goods, purple and pink weavings, centered on my desk. The window sills are a light green. The tie backs are emerald. My favorite things watched over, from a shelf above; a music box, a jewelry box, books, a cat bank, and a mouse, in a blue dress, seated in a rocker.
I also slept with an Elephant. I squished her under my head until it felt just right. She wasn't fleece but warm and grey. She gave me security. My aunt, without children by choice, always gave me stuffed animals that made me feel seen. Being responsible for them was freeing. They didn't expect me to do anything but love them. I was okay in all my emotional states. That silent understanding was far greater than the distant silence between my mother and I. Somedays, it was the only salvage.
My grandmother made me a curtain to hide the papers under my desk. I chose the fabric. It, too, was lilac. Puffy, three petal white flowers with orange shadows repeated. They looked like peacock feathers from a distance. They were just a shaded pattern from the holly hobbie bedspread I used to sleep under. A lil more grown up. Still the same colors. Still the same fields. My window only saw the siding on my great uncle's house. It didn't show me the distance, like other windows in the house.
Greys, pinks, purples, and greens. In HS, I was happily on the Grey team. Without the historical understanding, I was just happier not to be blue, my mother's favorite color. I didn't know that Grey meant the South, meant an alignment with treason, meant I justified slavery. In undergrad, I was denied the highest award. Suddenly, the provost forgot my name. I would not be a member of the Green and Grey Society. 2 of my favorite colors would deny me on an institutional level. Jesuits are crusaders who financed slavery and used Christianity as the tool to do so. At the same time, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority courted me. I wasn't ready to go pink and green, like my grandmother, aunt, and 2nd cousins. Those colors showed up in my bathroom, when I first bought my house. It was one of the signs I knew where I would live.
I was a founding member of a sorority. The colors are purple and pink. I'd found a way to tie my grandmother and me, again. Purple saturated my life since I discovered Prince. My father's living room is somewhere between lavender and lilac. Mine is only light purple on the bottom. I have room to decide if white walls are going to go grey. I have a turtle tank instead of a fish. The turtle is green.
Elephants belong to Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. They are crimson and cream. They are the only organization my mother ever considered. She didn't join. I never considered myself "black enough" to cross those mighty sands. I was lighter than most of the sisters. I love red cars, but that's about it. It may seem fitting. Some folks call me Red. Luckily, Loyola College didn't have Divine 9. I didn't start the sorority til 20 years later.
Lenoir Rhyne's colors are garnet and black. It's motto is translated "the truth shall set you free". Am I free? What is my truth? Who's telling my story? Garnet was my youngest's color for many years. It's deep rich pigment reminds me of blood when air first hits it. Black absorbs all. Black is the earth and the fullness thereof. I am seen as Black and choose Black. Many years after I'd chosen out of desperation, I chose myself. Private education is a zoo. I paid to be seen. I pay to take up space where I'm assumed to be more like a monkey or a clown. I have been trained to speak, walk, and dress for success. You can still see the sadness in my eyes. I may not remember everything. I'm still more elephant like.
I won't forget the moments when color reduced my existence. I am not and cannot mix. I am the spot in white spaces. The walls are bigger, older, and seemingly wiser than me. They painted themselves. My ancestors' sweat doesn't whelp in the walls, flake the paint, turn it ever so grey. My voice is disposable. I cannot speak for them. I'm only allow to be in space. I'm not of it. I have learned to wait and watch the paint dry.
My grandmother's death didn't change the colors we had together. I didn't strip my life of the greens, purples, greys and pinks. These colors show up in the flowers I choose or the clothes I wear. It's subconscious. I am comfortable in my mess. It shows my humanity. It cannot be defined by characterization. Every animal's body grieves differently. Moving them from what they know, not matter what the gain, doesn't erase that. It's the parallels observed that connect us. It's the dominance that divides.
Humans are just as nomadic as their animal counterparts, by choice or force. When we realize that no amount of moving can bring us any closer to what we don't have, we will be better off. Zoos aren't humane. Schools don't really educate. Are white folks just that sad that they have to dominate everyone and everything, instead of investing in what they do have? Elephants are indigenous to people of color. We handle them differently. We honor them. They aren't for use or show. Tons of the grey is a beautiful heard or a life threatening rumble. They, too, are everything in between. Nothing is limited to the perceptions of humans. Once we get over ourselves, we will see that colors do more than we give them credit for.
