Around Here

Sunday morning. With a couple of hours to myself, I rented a kayak and took the short trail into the Four Mile Cove Ecological Preserve along the Caloosahatchee River. It's a tidal creek dominated by mangroves, black rush, and ferns. You see heron perched on the shore, odd-looking fish slipping through the water's dappled dream, flitting things. I like kayaking these gulf coast backwaters, streams, and lagoons, sliding silently along. The pace is a focused drift. A bit of subtle paddling keeps you viscerally connected, relaxed but alert, to an invisible thread through the water, a meditation. There's a primordial stillness back here, a sense of enclosure. You're in their world.

Some euphemisms are dodgier than others. But one of the squirreliest is the one that television has adopted to warn viewers of certain kinds of content. I heard it last night before the broadcast of Frontline. You’d think PBS, at least, would be more plain-spoken: “This program contains graphic imagery. Viewer discretion is advised.” Graphic imagery? As opposed to musical imagery? Upholstered imagery? Isn’t graphic imagery the only kind there is? Why don’t they just say what they mean: “This program contains explicit sex,” which I’d be inclined to watch. Or “This program contains graphic violence,” which I’d be inclined to decline. As it is you don’t know what you’re in for until you're on top of it.

Blogger extraordinaire, and lifestyle consultant, Gillian, posted a series on color all week, starting here . I was going to comment, but my comment grew into a full-spectrum post. It's happened before. Thanks for the inspiration, mon Bleux. My awareness of colors and the emotional response they evoked began in my early childhood, staring, transfixed, at the lights on the Christmas tree. Here, at their purest and most intense, I found for the first time their essential vibes. Reiterated in fireworks, their midsummer exploded and sky-borne cousins. I could not have articulated, that young, what I found, but the memory is intact... Blue was mystical. Deeply, achingly mystical. In some profound way blue felt like home, yet made me homesick. Red was the life force. Blatant, merry, carnal, glorious. My best friend. Green was friendly and nurturing. Elemental, unassailable, worldly. I felt safe with green. Pink: sweet girly joy, radiant and tickled. Orange: this one cross-referenced Hal...