In early April, a few weeks after lock down started in Maryland, I came across the color scavenger hunt, an activity idea for kids via The Color Factory and party expert, Darcy Miller. The idea is simple: Gather items of a specific color in your room or house, lay it all out, and then take a picture. What was an idea for kids became for me, a fun, necessary break from my computer and being online, and surprisingly, a chance to flex my haiku writing skills. Not to mention I got a chance to look through all my stuff. An abbreviated version of tidying, so to speak.
I discovered that a few colors are well-represented in my possessions. Others, while I wear a lot of the color (like gray), were surprisingly lacking in numbers. I found items that are relatively new, ones I had forgotten exist, some I rarely use, and others that have been with me for decades. Items that have stories of their own.
I realized how our styles evolve and how some stay the same but are a bit more curated. This evolution is closely tied with growing older, as I’m trying to not have as much stuff and love the stuff I do own. As I am more drawn to classic patterns and neutral palettes now, I do love pops of color and I hope I always will.
At some point the captions for these posts on Instagram turned into poems—mostly haikus. A few I wrote after I shared the photos, so here are all the haikus in their colorful glory:
red wax pools seals my heart within until you come and break it * yellow metro card a record of where i've been where shall i go next? * brown, color of earth natural--but darker hues exterminated condemned as less than when they/we hold the power of a thousand suns * together we can rule galaxies--worlds full of and beyond color * the white bone folder has creased thousands of pages my life wrapped within * i am brilliant. i am bright and beautiful. shine, shine like the stars. * a feast for the eyes every color imagined in play, in contrast
three generations 