Mellow in Yellow

Choosing the perfect paint color to decorate one’s “room of her own” can be quite challenging. But it’s worth the hunt. I discovered this when I painted my office, where I write, with just the right hue. Here’s how this changed my life:

Oh joy, here you are again, just when I thought you’d left until Spring. Joy is in the little things, joy is in the details. A flabby shaft of light shines in my window and pokes my little green Buddha statue in his round tummy and my Buddha laughs and laughs to be so tickled. Oh joy, the things you do to grab my attention. Now that you have me, what shall I do? Shall I go and seek other joyful things, or commit joyful acts on this late October day of crisp brown grass and somber sky?

Ever since my office walls became “Enjoyable Yellow,” so has my life. So simple, really, this application of color. If only I could change the world so easily. If only I could paint out the cross faces and hungry eyes and grasping fingers, angry thoughts and empty souls and color them all Enjoyable Yellow. How much brighter the world would then be.

It would be hard to bear grudges, commit foul acts of mayhem. After all, it’s called Film Noir, not Film Enjoyable Yellow. For a good reason. Color influences our moods, shapes our passions, crafts our creativity. Red excites, yellow uplifts, lavender turns us spiritual, white’s for purity, pink for tenderness, sky-blue for flights of fancy, gray for quiet reflection, black for sophistication or dark moodiness, magenta for rich secrets, and purple for royalty. And orange, rhymes with nothing, Orange sets the spirit free to soar. That’s why I sought a yellow with a nice hint of orange. That warm orange would warm my fingers through the coming winter; would spark my creativity.

So I searched and searched for just the right paint, a certain yellow without lemon, with no undercurrents of green, spiced just right with warm orange — and I found it! Oh yes, I found my perfect yellow and it now surrounds me, for my walls have been painted ‘Enjoyable Yellow,’ a rich hue touched with the flavor of the ripe orange of Fall, a yellow that hints of the harvest moon, that hints of lunacy, of freedom to let my fingers fly, to hold nothing back, to write into the small hours. Because when walls are Enjoyable Yellow, night becomes day, and day becomes bright sunshine, and fancy flings itself all over the page until I, like the Buddha, laugh and laugh, to be so free and silly and care not for opinions and judgments and such — for who is having more fun than me, and killjoys cannot stop me now. For I, and I alone, live in a realm, in a writing palace bathed in Enjoyable Yellow, and it is mine, all mine. I know sunshine all day through, all night through, if I wish it so. For sleep is not necessary when one’s room is always sunshine and it is never dark and forever summer-bright. I type on, I do not sleep, for who could sleep when it’s so sunny, who would want to waste this glorious interior sunshine on a cool October night?

Look how late it is, I really must stop now. But I cannot stop, for it is still sunny. And oh! I must flick off the light. There, that’s better, it’s dark, it appears the sun has finally set, though I know in my heart of hearts that it’s still walled sunshine in this room. But I will restrain myself. No, I will not turn on the light, I will only write by the pale flickering of the monitor’s screen

Now I feel myself slowing down; my eyes itch for sleep, I must power down, and grope for the computer’s off-switch. I restrain myself from turning on the light again, better to bump my way out of the room than to make the sun rise again and brightness once again illuminates the Enjoyable Yellow and I am called by creativity’s reawakened muse to write and still write more even after the enjoyable has come and gone.

Getting tired, sleep soon. Yes. Go to sleep. Good night little Buddha statue, sleep well. Good night room, night has come. Until tomorrow then. When, I understand from the weather forecast, my office will once again be fair and sunny, with little or no chance of rain.

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