The color purple

When I was a kid whenever anyone asked me what my favorite color was, I always responded, "red." Red is an awesome color. It's a primary color. It's bright. It's powerful. It makes a statement. It also looks really good on brunettes.

Later, as an adult in my thirties, whenever people asked me what my favorite color was, I'd respond, "green." Green is serene. It's the color of nature. Green means growth and fertility. Um... yes, these were my childbearing years. The years I nourished my little sprouts. The years I barely hung on to my sanity by a thread. Green totally made sense to me back then.

But lately, green has been boring. Don't get me wrong. I still love red and I still love green, but those colors don't talk to me anymore.

"Well, us talk and talk about God, but I’m still adrift. Trying to chase that old white man out of my head. I been so busy thinking bout him I never truly notice nothing God make. Not a blade of corn (how it do that?) not the color purple (where it come from?). . . ."

I wish I'd written that, but of course, it's Alice Walker.

And lately, I'm totally getting the color purple. (I "got" the book years ago- fantastic), but the color itself, I wasn't so sure about until recently. And I blame Mike Geraci for that.

Purple is majestic. It's bold. It's not expected. It's flashy. And if you're Mike Geraci, it's confusing as all out. Honestly, the poor man is either color blind or he missed kindergarten the day they explained the color wheel.

Shortly after we got married, Mike Geraci and I were getting ready to go out somewhere. He was in the shower and shouted out, "Hey! Can you get me my purple shoes?"

I froze. I married a man who wears purple shoes?

"Mike Geraci, you don't own purple shoes. Unless you're hiding them from me, I would have seen them by now."

"Sure I do. They're in the closet." He then proceeded to show me his "purple" shoes.

Yep. There they are. I soon discovered that whenever Mike Geraci can't pinpoint the name of a color, if there's any red to it at all, it becomes purple. The dining room in our house (painted a jeweled maroon tone) was purple. It's like the etc, etc, etc... of colors for him. Except now that it's become my official favorite color, I'm out to educate him on what purple really is. Because I don't want to end up with a maroon sweater for Christmas.