The Hue of You: Manuscript Monday

I saw I picked up some new followers recently. Welcome and thanks. I hope you enjoy the travel photos and random musings. Mondays I try to talk a little about my writing. Today’s post was inspired by a weekly photo challenge that WordPress created.

Sequoia National Park overlook
Sequoia National Park.

Previously we’ve discussed defining moments, and you all blew me away with your replies. I told you that one of my most defining moments was the summer of my sixteenth birthday, when my dad died of a heart attack.

It was a strange time, and teenagers don’t always have ideal strategies for coping and moving forward from events such as that. One of the strangest things I did that summer was to make a conscious choice about my favorite color.

Until then, my favorite color was blue. I would wear down every shade of blue in my crayola box to the nubs. But the day I walked from those endless, blue-on-blue Nevada skies into the crematorium, I decided I hated the color blue. I didn’t want to color it, wear it, see it, smell it, or feel it.

Weekly Photo Challenge travel Vietnam
I loved the bright colors of Vietnam, including this brightly painted dragon at a temple near Hue.

For a short period of time I wavered between green and yellow. Everything living, growing, and natural was green. But yellow seemed the epitome of happiness. It was a small choice, but it grew on me, and while I’ll never be the type of person who surrounds herself with a favorite color, I like to always have something yellow in my line of sight. It’s a healthy kind of compulsion.

I no longer have anything against blue, and forget-me-nots are one of my favorite flowers, but yellow, for me, is the color of happiness.

expat life Pretoria South Africa travel Weekly Photo Challenge
Acacia tree in bloom. South Africa

It was also my mother’s favorite color. When she passed several years ago, we all wore yellow in subtle or demonstrative ways. We had yellow flowers for her service. I was not the same person I was when my dad died, and the yellow at her funeral couldn’t deter my own love for the color.

What is your hue? Is it a specific shade or all shades of that color? How or when did you come to know it was your favorite color?

travel Vietnam

Hope you have a productive and happy week, friends!

Love, Marla


17 thoughts on “The Hue of You: Manuscript Monday

  1. My favorite color is green. My mom’s mom’s favorite color is also green. It’s not a coincidence. When my brother and I were born, my mom and brother were in the hospital for a month or two due to complications. My father worked long and weirds hours, so that left my grams to take care of me. I’ve always felt a better connection with her than with any other grandparent. She’s 83 and I live an hour away but we are still extremely close and I’m still her favorite.

  2. Loved that pic of you Marla, you look so happy.
    My favorite color I say is black, but when it comes to clothes I find myself buying shades of olive green and grey. All my shorts are the same color, I look like a picture for some people (looks like I wear the same clothes over and over).

  3. Hands down-green. I think I was born loving green because I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t my favourite. For me, it’s the colour of life, change, beginnings, things to look forward to. Thanks for sharing your colour and thoughts behind it, truly touching.

  4. Mine? I don’t think I have one, maybe Red but sometimes deep Blue. If I look at my closet I have lots of jewel tones, but my closet is dominated by Black.

  5. Purple is mine. Not pale, lavender-y purple, but deep, plummy, jewel-toned purple. It started with Donny Osmond and his purple socks and just never went away.

    1. Hahahaha…Sue, I don’t know who you are, but that is just too funny!! My wife’s favorite color is deep purple, AND also a huge Donny Osmond fan! I have even heard mention many times of the purple socks! Hahaha, too funny!!

    2. Hahaha. Holy cow I was just thinking about the same comment my brother said about his wife. I never knew about the Donny Osmond socks and now I know two people who have that as a very poignant memory. I love it!

  6. Mine too is yellow! but not the true bright yellow as in the pic of the dragon in this post; more the deep golden yellow that many would argue as orange. Think “autumn leaf yellow”

    1. That’s a beautiful shade of yellow. I know what you mean about orange, but I also think of autumn gold as yellow, not orange. If there isn’t a crayon called “autumn leaf yellow” there should be. 🙂

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