red

red used to be my favorite color. or, one of my favorite colors. pink, orange, red, yellow, turquoise, it changes all the time. I can never really decide. but back in college, it was red and I had this friend who secretly collected red things for me-- a pack of big red gum, a red bottle cap, a red pencil, a red plastic bracelet, a stop sign, an actual stop sign. when he finally gave these things to me, I didn't know what to say. because, well, it was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for me. it was simple and thoughtful and creative and absolutely romantic. my eighteen year-old self did not know how to receive such a gesture. my eighteen year-old self was overwhelmed with the implications. but lookit, here I am, still talking about it twenty years later. darren, I still have all those red things. I still treasure them. you should know that, wherever you are.

so I have sort of soft spot for red. which I've been thinking about all week long as I've been collecting it-- a set of red numbers here, a bright red door there. a street performer's old band uniform, a pile of favorite red things from around the house. the act of collecting has brought me as much joy as that sweet little collection of reds given to me twenty years ago. at the big downtown library, I spent an hour in the photography section selecting only books with red spines. I wore red on my fingertips, discovered at least a hundred red things in my neighborhood. I began to see little bits of red everywhere I went. red, red, red.

red, I still love you. I really really do.

(more over on color//colour lovers, more about the project and more over on fellow color collaborator xanthe's blog)

(next up:  y e l l o w)