Couleur sauvage
◊ As I walked to the grocery store this morning, I walked with my head cranked around like a tourist watching skyscrapers so I could stare at the crystalline, California-blue patches of sky showing between clots of clouds. The hills to the south were mottled green and they glowed like spring where the sunlight hit them. When I got home, the coffee I made was ink-black and as opaque as a French art film.
As I mixed some hair dye, I spilled a drop from a little vial of color and it was bright as blood that wells up under a razor nick. As I rinsed my hair, the dye-mixed water tinted my breasts pink as it ran over my skin and flooded my feet in a pool of maroon. The shampoo lather, carrying away the last of the dye, felt and looked like cotton candy.
The stretch of Highway 17 leading to my friend's house was lined with shrubs that blossomed in infinite shades of pink. From my friend's windows I could see the tawny, wrinkled foothills to the north. We wandered outside and sipped on wine that sang deep, sweet and burgundy.
I did not turn my love for this wild range of colors into a scattershot prayer to whatever might be listening in. Instead I let it crash over me and roll me over like a tall wave would. I swam in those colors like a fish, like I was born to it.
Today was a beautiful day.