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Saturday, April 3, 2010

Give me a memory of the color red, but don't say the word "red"

Exercise #3

My mother's favorite color plasters the bathroom walls, the floors, the shower curtain, the towels--ripest cherry screaming out at you, warning you not to bother if you have a hang-over or get easily jettisoned by boldness.  Always, my mother's favorite color was a blindfold to me, a given to nature, but I never stopped to think of the "her" underneath the screaming scarlet.

As my age moves along an upward scale I feel a sort of gravitational pull to the poisoned apple grazing all my memories, so much so that my daughter has begun to think I belong there among the poppies.  I mix metaphors, speak in obscure phrases that mean little, do little to increase my station.  The thoughts that are so obviously mine bore me so much that I slouch, sniff the candle with the word "fire"on it's box, roll my eyes at the pictures on the wall.

There is nothing to see here.  Please step aside.  It's time to go home.

2 comments:

  1. My first child's baby room was BRIGHT orange, like the towels I just bought.

    And I speak in sighs and grunts alternating with Gilbert and Sullivan.

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  2. Ann,

    My first daughter's room is bright orange and mellow purple, her favorite colors since before she had the words.

    And how is it I find myself slipping into their speech patterns/shouldn't they be quoting NPR by now? Thanks for stopping!

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