Blue

Blue

‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ kids are frequently asked: A Doctor, a Lawyer, the President? But no child ever realizes the sub-categories within each choice. What kind of doctor? What kind of lawyer? President of what?

Same with colors. In grammar school, you were taught red. Which red? Fire engine red? Stop light red? Stop sign? 

Yellow meant slow, and the sun, and daisies. Blue, was the sky, and the ocean, and….. the hottest color. 

This, she learned for the first time, as an adult because she didn’t pay attention in science classes and he reveled in them. 

“Blue is the hottest color,” he told her that night with her huddled in blankets around the fire pit, when their love was as sincere and as fresh as the earth smell all around them, years before blue fire went from a romantic idea to a flat fact. 

That is exactly what happened to their relationship. It began with that glimmering orange, deeply growing into red. They knew that blue was coming but it was too late. They were in it and they were burning in their love. Of course they burned into ash. It was inevitable. It’s science. It’s nature. Blue is the hottest and quickest to turn to ash.

These days, she no longer takes colors for granted. A smile that radiates warmth perhaps, that beginning yellow ocher safe feel, could be in fact an orange long ago rusted or painted over. She herself, was turning neutral. Neutral was safest. Wearing beiges and grays amid the bright flashy colors, she was more balanced. It was hard to trust the flashy colors. Too many blues, too many reds, yellows, greens. She knew from experience how colors could change or have different meanings.

No doubt, her heart was broken, but she managed to move forward with her days, dutifully showing up at the high school on time to unlock the office and start the school day. Beige movements: turn on computer, hang up coat, check messages, print out schedules. Her smile was as appropriate as she could muster as she greeted students and staff throughout the day. She took her lunch alone in her car, keeping solitary and solid, like steel, another solid gray color.

One Tuesday morning, a special needs one-on-one teacher called out sick and there was no sub available. The principal paced, trying to decide what to do when it came to her. “Jean. Will you go to art class with Jason? I can get a student council member to answer the phones.”

Art! Colors! Mess! Jean panicked inside but hid it well, and reluctantly walked down to the art room. Mrs. Stevens gave her a sigh of relief and pointed to Jason and the empty seat next to him for her. “Thank you so much,” the teacher mouthed to Jean. 

The teacher went on with her lesson. They were talking about the color wheel and warm and cool colors. She had two columns on the board and called on individual students to tell which column to put the colors in. 

“Gloria. Red. Warm or Cool?” 

“Warm,” Gloria answered. Mrs. Stevens said, “Excellent!” As she wrote red in the “warm” column. 

“Robert. Yellow.” 

“Warm,” Robert replied and he was correct and yellow was added to the warm column. 

Jean was finding this interesting and she was also getting a little annoyed. Weren’t some reds and yellow cool? Colors were not made to be put in black and white columns. Just the same, she guided Jason to write the colors in the proper columns on his paper. 

“Jason,” Mrs. Stevens continued. “Blue.”

Jean started to guide Jason’s hand toward the warm column. There should be a ‘hot’ column she thought. 

Jason glanced at his color wheel diagram and said softly, “Cool.”

“Excellent Jason! Well done. Blue is a cool color.”

Jean was confused. She thought blue was hot. Like fire, like the most unbearable heat. 

The bell rang and another staff member came to take Jason to his next class. She thanked Jean, who went back to her desk confused. 

After the last bell, Jean went down to the art room to catch Mrs. Stevens.

“Angela,” she popped her head in.

“Oh hi Jean. Thanks for filling in with Jason today.

“No problem,” Jean said. “I was happy to. And I learned something in your class I wanted to ask about, if you have a minute.”

“Sure,” Angela said curiously. “I’m happy to talk about art any time. If only more of the students were as enthusiastic as I am.”

“Well, teens, we all know—challenging. Anyway, I wanted to know how you determine warm and cool colors. I was told that blue is the hottest flame in a fire, so I though it would be a warm color, not cool, as you instructed the class.”

Angela stared at Jean for a moment, wondering about the odd question, 

“Well,” Angela began, “I don’t know a thing out the mechanics of a fire or much of any science for that matter—I never really thought about blue as hot. Blue is cool, like water, and atmosphere and sadness…”

“Sadness? Really?”

“Sure. Oh course! You know, all the songs about being blue?”

“Well, yes, now that you mention it. Funny, they don’t write songs about he blue heat of love, the hottest flame. They alway write about red. But red is only the beginning.”

Angela wasn’t sure what she was talking about but said, “So many colors, so many variations of meanings.”

“Yes,” Jean said, agreeing whole-heartedly. She thanked her and went back to her desk to get her things. 

On the way home, the sun was setting and turning a bright orange red. 

“Orange-red,” Jean said to herself. “The beginning stage of fire.

She drove in silence, watching the sky along the highway gradually change into dusk blues. As she pulled into her driveway, the sky was the color of blue ice and the air was crisp. 

She ran into the house, cranked up the heat and sat on the couch under her soft, fleece blanket with a cup of tea. Out her window it looked cold and she was happy to be warm in side. 

Blue, she pondered. It could be hot or cold. She pulled the blanket, which itonically was blue, higher up around her shoulders. She took a sip of tea, feeling a long, overdue feeling of contentment.

“Blue,” she said out loud to no one, “blue belongs in the ‘cozy’ column.”