Shades
Another rewrite
I think light is my favorite color.
along fields. And off the moon, or the rivets of the road reflecting rearlights. The way it makes things come alive, and seeps into my mothers brown bedroom.
The fire in the middle of a campground. Candles while you read and write. Light fracturing through glass or from my phone flashlight as I run through woods, or water, or wind. The sun. The reflection in everything’s eyes when you catch them right. A mineral. When I am thinking of my favorite versions of light I see the sky. Rays through clouds and warm colors at sunset that nothing quite captures. But if I think longer, I cannot make a decision. Sunrises are sneakier. A lamp from the next room.
When I took Drawing I in highschool I insisted on drawing transparent bottles. The way the light dances along and inside the layers of thick glass is mesmerizing. A challenge. There is life trapped in those curves and reflections.
My grandparents have a sunroom, I always remember thinking it was a magical little room as I played with Barbies. Wondered how all these windows worked. Wandered through them up a tree and back down and up and down and to another. The light was always different up there. You could really see the color of the sky. The way the sun colored the clouds and the molecules between them. The light changing with the season. Back inside to my Grandma’s comfy brown couch and tan rug. With a brown fan. Tom and Jerry. Beauty and the Beast. A tape about a whale that would make me cry. Wall-E.
The moon requires the light of the sun to shine, and one day the sun will cease to shine. In which the moon will have a choice, to find something else to reflect, or to watch those great fires from a distance.
My grandparents rent a beach house. All the browns and tans you don’t see between trees are at the beach. The light the clearest I’ve ever seen (the turtles follow it). My grandfather always made sure there was a deck. He always watches the sunset. My mom used to tell us that lighting and thunder was God rolling a strike. I am not religious but I believe it. I bet he wears brown bowling shoes.
When I sit under a tree, and look up to see the spots of light above – a kaleidoscope in the tree leaves – all my selves settle into my body. I am three feet off the ground.
My grandpa mows the lawn every week and he listens to thunderstorms in their sunroom. Watch it unfold, I remember my first real thunderstorm. Where I really saw it. I understood how people grow old. How they don’t wiggle back down to the dirt and breathe their insides into oblivion. My grandparents hide blue and pink and orange and all the other colors of easter eggs around their yard for their grandchildren to find. I remember my first real spring day. Where the light is hitting every orifice and the Earth stirs beyond creaks of life. Grief and peace.
My mother hums while she works and it reminds me of another bird's song. An owl. Who has laid eight children. Raised seven. Lost one. We all have brown eyes. And when they hit the light they glow like owls at night.
Sometimes I pull over on roads you probably shouldn’t pull over on. The way the light looks in the sky is too soul wrenching to go uncaptured. I feel all the excitement of a rager in my car as I watch the sun go down and sing whatever song my shuffle sends me. I think I could do just this for most of my life. Drive to get somewhere, watch the sky, and sing badly. Light is my favorite color.