Blue

This is what it looked like outside my window when I got up. Its also what Teacake and I walked around the block in. Me, huddled under my blue umbrella, he, prancing around like it was 80 and sunny. My father promised he could feel the snow in the air last night, so I was expecting bleaker skies. Instead they're blue and wet. I love the color blue. It's probably my favorite. And by probably I mean every wall of my apartment is blue (navy bedroom, light teal living room), about three quarters of my closest is blue, two different bed coverings are blue, and the tile in my kitchen is green and blue. All of this happened unbeknown to me, and suddenly a year or so ago I stood back and realized how much blue I have positioned around me since college.

It often reminds me of Picasso and his very famous "Blue Period." Above is my favorite drawing I could find when googling "Picasso Blue Period." Its funny, learning it in school I've had it in my mind that it was many still lifes, but looking it up now it is almost entirely portraits. His Blue Period was from 1901 to 1904. According to Wikipedia they are influenced by a journey through Spain and the suicide of a friend, and painted in Paris. Beautiful but melancholy. His subjects were even often sad choices--beggars, prostitutes.

The Guitarist here is perhaps his most famous. Again beautiful, again tragically sad. I just want to pick this man up and hug his fragile shoulders and melancholy face. The lifelessness in his limbs is hard to look at. I picture the struggle of his malnourished and elderly body trying to pluck the guitar strings. His legs haphazardly crossed, his neck hanging in weakness and despair. Should I be nervous that I began living out my own blue period and didn't even realize it until I was half way through?

Blue is considered an additive primary color (perhaps I'll delve more into that tomorrow) and its compliment is yellow (which responds to an equal mixture or red and green). So if you look at yesterday's color wheel you see the darkest yellow directly opposite the darkest blue--with green and red equidistant from both. I also checked out the origin of the expression "feeling blue." Turns out its a naval term and "If you are sad and describe yourself as "feeling blue," you are using a phrase coined from a custom among many old deep-water sailing ships. If the ship lost the captain or any of the officers during its voyage, she would fly blue flags and have a blue band painted along her entire hull when returning to home port." Again, so sad!

But here is the reason I don't think you need to be worried about my mental health : On the other side or rain and sadness there are blue skies and beautiful oceans. So much of our most gorgeous natural world is Blue, and I think that might have more to do with why I love it. I love being outdoors, I love sunny skies and I love swimming in lakes and oceans. All the blue in my apartment makes it feel very beach like. Its funny when we use the word blue we rarely separate it from sadness. I think I'm okay though. I'll stick to crashing waves, crystal lakes and vast summer skies. That is my kind of blue--although Picasso did a beautiful job with the heart wrenching version.