Dear First name / friend

 

I've been thinking a lot this week about colour, for various different reasons, which I'd like to share with you. 

 

Perhaps rather obviously, I have learnt a lot about myself from living alone. I remember a few years ago my counsellor and I were doing some work on identity. She asked me “What's your favourite colour?”. It's a question asked of young children almost as soon as they've learnt to speak and is a facet of identity that follows you throughout your life - often changing, but always held with absolutism and certainty. Growing up, I wanted the walls of my bedroom to be painted purple, so I think that was probably my favourite colour as a child. But as I got older, accompanied by all the self-exploration and existentialism of youth, I became lost among the ‘shoulds’ of society and the expectations. What I mean to say is, I began to question whether I wore what I wore because I liked it, or because I thought others would approve, or someone else liked it, or I felt that's what I should wear. And the same held true of colour. So when my counsellor asked this question of me, I had no answer for her. She was surprised; she thought she'd started with something pretty basic.

 

A few years on, I have learnt that my favourite colour is pink. I have grown to love decorating my home and over time it has become apparent that clearly I like the colour pink! It's also surprising to me how much colour I have chosen to add into the space because I would hardly say that my wardrobe is full of the same bright colours and charming prints.

 

This week at a gallery exhibition I was surprised to see so much pink featured in the artist's work. It's not a colour I associate really with “serious” art and especially not expected from art from the early 1900s. Considering this, I was reminded of one of my favourite books, purchased on a whim at Waterloo station for no other reason than because I thought it looked quite pretty: The Secret Lives of Colour by Kassia St Clair.

 

As I look for a gift for my lovely sister's upcoming baby shower, I am again drawn to thinking about colour. We don't know the sex of the baby (reminding myself that ‘gender’ is a social construct…) and so neutral colours are the dish of the day. However, in The Secret Lives of Colour, St Clair reminds us that the “pink for a girl” and “blue for a boy" rule only dates from the mid-twentieth century. One of the first articles on the topic was written in 1893 in the New York Times and explained “The boy's outlook is so much more roseate than the girl's that it is enough to make a girl baby blue to think of living a woman's life in the world”. In 1918 it was agreed that pink was the “more decided and stronger colour” whilst blue was “delicate and dainty”, with references to the uniforms of soldiers and the Virgin Mary respectively. The initial coyness with which I wrote that my favourite colour is pink - ashamed at such blatant conformation to the stereotype - has now been replaced with the knowledge than in fact “daring, full-blooded pinks were a hit with strong characterful women”. I'll take that. 

 

Mindful moment: Do you know what your favourite colour is? It's interesting to consider what it is that you like about it and, conversely, what it is that you dislike about other colours. How can this help to build your sense of identity? Do you notice colour? What is your relationship like with colour in your surroundings? Take time this weekend to notice the beauty of colour in nature and to reaffirm your sense of self, belonging and identity within that. 

 

One of my favourite books as a child was called The Day It Rained Colours. A once eternally black-and-white existence is suddenly ended as the townspeople begin to paint the grass and the flowers and the sky in as many colours as they can; it's a beautiful book.

 

Mindful movement: If your exercise routines are feeling a little monotonous, how might you be able to inject a little colour back into your movement? Can you create a sense of joy, freedom and playfulness around movement? Are you able to use the metaphor of colour to reinvigorate and be more bold, creative and empowered as you move?