Separating Colors

Every time I throw a load of whites in the wash I'm tempted to drop in something red. A T-shirt. A pair of undies. A handkerchief. The redder the better. Yet I refrain, afraid that all of my husband's white undershirts will become pink. Will they really turn pink?

I tried separating my two-year-old's mountain of Play-Doh last night. During the 15 minutes it took to nurse my three-month-old, Ayla managed to create one enormous pile of mud-colored Play-Doh. Speckled through out it were hints of red and blue and yellow.

How often do colors bleed together in your life? Do you try and tease them apart? Sometimes I don't even have time (or make the time) to notice the colors and what they're doing.

Such a simple thing. Colors.

We may easily forget about them when we write as well. Writing that utilizes our senses may create a scent beneath our noses, a tingling of bells in our ears, and even a roughness upon the tips of our fingers. Colors can equally produce sensations in our minds and bodies if handled well in our writing. They can also serve as symbols to add significant meaning to the writing.

A simple description of a color if original and creative can snap a vision of the particular hue in front of the readers eyes. Halloween is right around the corner and soon we'll be reading many books about pumpkins, witches, ghosts, candy apples and goblins to our children. There's orange and black and white and red and green. So basic, yet just a beginning. There are shades and shadows to consider. Discolorations and erosion of color.

We're planning on taking our girls to a pumpkin patch in a few weeks and I hope my eyes will take in the various types of orange on that day, so that it might help me as a writer to consider the detail of color in my writing! A simple pumpkin can also expand a child's understanding of color by talking about it and reading about pumpkins.

I love the fall for all the colors it holds for us!