The colors of life

Yesterday was a refreshing long overdue. I went for a walk and once again was heartened by the colors of Fall. I cooked a nice meal and didn't watch television, congratulating myself on achieving a goal I often set but seldom achieve. I went to bed while it was still light out but during the night I kept waking up, realizing that I was having dreams about things that happened when I was very young.
Finally I lay awake thinking. I realized that the melancholy of the past few days had passed. I have come to accept what I am, not what I should have been. I didn't do what I should have or was capable of, I just DID. Then a pleasing thought came to me. Why isn't there a color called melancholy? There is cerulean blue and burnt sienna, why can't Crayola make a melancholy? I imagine it would be sort of a lightish purple. Not the deep blackness of despair or the fiery orange of anger or the heartstopping greeness of some dark haired women's eyes but a gentle purple that says I am not a merry sunshine but I am going to be O.K.. The common phrase is "I am blue.". That doesn't begin to describe the feeling of melancholy. The sky can be a brilliant blue and gladden the heart, the sea can be a blue that twinkles in the Sun and lifts the spirit. Blue is not an acceptible definition. A nice gentle purple, not the deep dark of beet water or the foreboding purple of venous bleeding or the permanence of the stain that comes from those purple berries that grow by the side of the road on upright stalks. I was young and wore my new school clothes outside before school began and got into those berries. The carmine fire that shot from my Mother's eyes soon faded as she attempted to remove the stains. Somewhere, in a landfill far away there, there is a pair of chinos that look like they were at a Grateful Dead concert. Somewhere, in a landfill in Texas, there is a pair of white sandals with the red mud of the Red River muting their alabaster newness. That was one of my proudest moments, a time when I did do the right thing. The tears of a child should never be allowed to multiply, they are an anathema to the world.