The color of today

This was an 8-minute free write that a client and I played with during a session.

The color of today is red. Primary. Bright. Saturated. Water blue, solstice-sky blue, nighttime dark. Danger bright.  

Everything is in technicolor when we are anticipating something. When the thing begins, already there’s a wash over it. It’s a touch more muted than it is during the time of buildup. The buildup is the bright dabs of paint on the easel, not yet blended or thinned with turpentine. They’re the pristine pastels lined up in rainbow order, sharp cornered, waiting to be dulled by the pressure that hasn’t been applied yet.  

For now, for now the colors sing. And they smell. Sharp and fresh. The scent my mind conjures whenever anyone talks about art. The supplies in the elementary school classroom. The glue and the markers. The papier-mache mush. All of it untouched, luminous, waiting.

The color of today vibrates because I am at the threshold of a massive ending and a major crossing: one happening on the heels of the other. Once it’s all in motion the colors will blur together, dance and complement and cancel each other out. They’ll create an intricate beauty my mind cannot yet imagine. They will live out their purpose in this artform of a life. They’ll render a new reality, falling into one another with relief.

Today, though, they live, impossibly vivid, and clean, and pure—a marvel all their own.  

Pay as much attention, says wisdom, to the tubes of paint as the painting itself.