the color of an idea

My writing partner, Steven, says he sees music in colors. That's part of how he writes-- he'll want something golden or green or purple. I suppose you could say I have the same mental fixation with color. I get really uncomfortable around unpainted walls. I'll obsess for a long time on someone wearing the wrong shade of lipstick or what color my hair should be for my overall coloring. And, as I have pretty much always projected myself into imaginary versions of my future, the images I choose to represent that dream future are often about color. 

For Scotland, while I normally see a slate grey- almost purple-- and green, when I actually see myself in this world, I keep going back to this mustard yellow sweater. (I'm a Sienna fan and always have been actually-- I'll explain that more later.) And while I found a lot of this movie (Edge of Love-- about a love triangle between poet Dylan Thomas & his wife & his first love) tedious, I don't actually blame Sienna. (I can't deal with Keira Knightly. Can't deal.)

Mustard or maizey yellow is one of those colors that sounds awful in theory, but is actually wonderful & warm on the right coloring. And when I see myself lost in books, staring out my window seat, or sitting in my office in the poetry house of St. Andrews, that's what I'm wearing. And everything around me is soft and soft-focused, except the ideas. 

I watched the movie this past winter, where I sequestered myself from the real world with The Passage and a newly activated Netflix account and was truly and genuinely happy to be alone. I can remember being cuddled up in my wonderful slate-grey room while my neighbors Christmas lights blinked sweetly in through the big windows. This was when I really hatched my plan to spend the next few years of my life on wind-swept beaches just like these. 

I don't have a whole lot to say about Dylan Thomas. I like that his poetry has a musicality. I like that he was friends with a Scottish poet I quite admire, Ruthven Todd. I like that he said, "an alcoholic is someone that you don't like very much, who drinks as much as you do." And I like that in the film, he says "first love's all right as far as that goes--last love, that's what I'm interested in..."