Colour-Conscious

No matter how hard you try, you will not see colour the way I do.
You see with vision; through eyes with optic nerves carrying signals along pathways to
occipital brain matter. I don’t see it that simply. I’m sensory elevated. I am colour-
conscious.

I sense colour in shapes you’ve never known and textures you don’t imagine. Do you
know how a blue sky feels? Have you seen the shapes of red? Colours are alive. Maybe no one told you. Green has a strong, resilient voice. It speaks up for itself. Yellow smells like fun that was forgotten but has since been rediscovered. Purple, like an aged merlot, might help explain. Ironically, it’s shaped like a barrel, and speaks with an echo. You can feel every oak fibre of the barrel when you look at purple. Even when it’s the shade of a flower in your garden, or the paint on your toenail, purple is an oak barrel.

If you find it quite peculiar that colours have smells, shapes and voices, don’t worry! I find it quite normal.

When I see an orange flame in the fireplace, the orange swirl of my tiger-tail ice cream
or the orange tip of my marker, though, I come alive. Orange is the best colour. It never
keeps one shape. It’s always adapting. One moment it’s a sphere with jagged edges. Next, a diamond, and then a flat hexagon just like the ones I draw. You probably didn’t know orange smells like living hope and creativity. It makes me vibrate as my hair stands on end because the scent of life does that to a body. Plus, it tastes like love! When all of your good and beautiful imperfections are loved, that is the taste of orange. I feel it like I’m floating weightlessly; rising high until I can touch the texture of the blue sky above us. That is orange.

To be colour-conscious is to sense the unimaginable. If you notice I’m distracted, it’s
because of colour. And if you find it quite peculiar, don’t worry! I will always find it quite normal.