The Colour Yellow
It’s not very versatile. I tried to paint my nails yellow and it looked like pale slush. The polish itself was lumpy, so maybe that was the real problem, but I don’t think so. Yellow and I have always had a complicated relationship. I don’t look good in most shades. I have one yellow t-shirt to my name and with the cheaply sewn checkered patterns that coat the sleeves, it looks like something you would wear to a go-cart race.
Is yellow just a “cheap” colour? A cop-out that’s not enough orange? But, damn, I like it so much better than orange, and it feels so rich. Like when I use a yellow highlighter on words I want to remember forever. Not words from course readings or grocery lists, but words like “the master’s tools will not dismantle the master’s house.” Words I run over with screeching yellow until the ink soaks through the page onto the other side, where equally important but perhaps less transformative words lie. Those poor words who did nothing to deserve the yellow drowning. Do I deserve it? Do I deserve yellow? The colour of happiness, friendship, sunlight, eggs yolks and so many of my other favourite things. How do I make it my companion for life?
My downstairs neighbour died last summer, and someone in the building bought flowers for him. Their yellow was the friendship kind…
