Colour Me Beautiful
Have you ever noticed, how when you lie in a deckchair outside in the open air, eyes closed, how much more your whole body seems to absorb the sounds and smells of your surrounds than if you were to consciously set out to inspect those things more closely with your eyes wide open?
Ever notice how your skin seems to tingle at the sound and clarity of a bird twittering in the tree tops or how the sun has a distinct smell of its own as well as a kneading touch against our skin. It does. We can smell it [sun] in your sheets when they’ve been washed and hung out to dry. It’s one of my all time favourite smells. That and wood fires burning.
The Game
From time to time I play a game with myself. With my eyes closed, I try to guess what and where. What the scent or smell is and where it’s coming from. Not just birds twittering but what spieces of bird. Dogs barking, what kind of dog and which house, what’s its name. What’s cooking and from which direction are the aromatic scents wafting and perhaps even has it a guess at who’s cooking it. All this from the relative ease of a backyard chair!
I try to match my knowledge of the scents of plants and trees, their botanical name if I know it and if I don’t, I make a mental note to myself to find out. I’ve noticed that there’s rarely any pushing or shoving in the plant kingdom, every gets a chance to have their say, to shine even.
A Seasonal Showcase
The seasons showcase different individuals in bloom and when that happens it’s like they find their voices to sing as only they can. My all time winter favourite soloist is Winter Sweet (Chimoanthus Praecox) from the Calycanthaceae family. When she scents, her voice soars. There is absolutely nothing to compare her to except perhaps a Port Magnolia and even that seems an unfair comparison to either of them.
I’ve developed this game over a number of years, developed it from a conversation I’d been privy to between my mother and our old family friend ‘Aunty June’ (June Stead) as we drove into town one day. June Stead is blind, although she had been able to see up until the age of 14, I think it was. My memory is a bit fuzzy here, but it was thereabouts.
As we drove along, my mother commented how the Ruahines (a mountain range that runs along the eyeline and through the back bone of my home town of Waipukurau) were so beautiful that day. Meringue topped peaks. Luscious enough to eat.
‘Aunty’ June asked my mother to describe what she saw, and the thing that intrigued me the most, was how my mother’s descriptions were punctuated by ‘Aunty June’s persistent, probing questions about the colour of things.
Colour Life Beautiful
How would you describe a blue sky, or red sunset? Fortunately ‘Aunty June’ had a memory of colours but what if we had to describe them to someone who didn’t. What would we tell them? What would we get them to touch that might describe the colour?
Our senses give us high definition colour when we tune into their individual powers enabling us to interpret the world around us and with our increased awareness through our use of them. Sight, smell, taste, hear and touch, it’s a pandora’s box of neuro-science.
For what it’s worth, I’d describe the colour of the sky with the touch of sandwashed Habotai silk, that is, luxurious, smooth, seamless and exquisitely delicate to feel. How would you describe a sunset then?
