TheBanyanTree: The Color of Light

Mon Oct 1 09:57:15 PDT 2012

Thank you dear!

Monique Colver
An Uncommon Friendship: a memoir of love, mental illness, and friendship
Now available at
Amazon<http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Monique+Colver>
and
at www.AnUncommonFriendship.com <http://anuncommonfriendship.com/>
www.ColverPress.com
monique.colver at gmail.com
(425) 772-6218

On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 9:36 AM, auntiesash <auntiesash at gmail.com> wrote:

> This is amazing and beautiful.  I love the shading of non-beautifulness
> behind the story.  Rich and full of foreshadowing.  Makes me wanna know
> more!
>
> Thanks for sharing this!
> sash
>
> On Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 9:33 AM, Monique Colver <monique.colver at gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
> > I tried capturing it in jars, first a Hellman’s mayonnaise, not only
> rinsed
> > out, but scoured, cleaned within an inch of its life. Outside was the
> crisp
> > light of early fall, the trees not yet turning but on the verge. The sky
> > bright with free floating dreams, the kind that rarely float close enough
> > to catch. I stood underneath the pear tree where the light was subdued,
> and
> > I held up my jar, as high as I could reach, and the light flowed in. It
> > filled my jar, stopping just short of the top, a clear bright color with
> > the promise of cool nights and fire.
> >
> > When I put the lid on the light tried to escape, pushing back against the
> > lid while I pushed down, and just a bit of it got out, not much, but more
> > than I’d like. I wanted the jar full, so it could last all winter, and
> not
> > run out halfway through January.
> >
> > I tried a pickle jar, scrubbing the jar first with a scouring paid, and
> > though I couldn’t fit my whole hand in I used two fingers, wanting to
> make
> > sure the color of the light wouldn’t be contaminated by any extra pickle
> > flavor. I stood next to the house on the first cold crisp day of winter
> > when the air was brisk enough to turn my nose red. Instead of holding the
> > jar up I swept it next to me, scooping up the light. In the jar the light
> > looked white, though it was as clear as the sky. I was stronger this
> time,
> > and sneakier, and before the light knew what was happening the lid was on
> > tight. It wasn’t as much light as I had in the mayonnaise jar, but in the
> > summer I don’t need as much of the winter light, so it should last me.
> >
> > By spring we had moved, and the light I wanted to capture wasn’t
> available
> > at our new place. I had early fall, and the first day of winter, but I
> > wanted the spring of where we used to live, not the flat spring of where
> we
> > were living. The spring air where we used to live was full of promises,
> the
> > dreams drifting down close enough to touch before they spun away again,
> > light as gossamer, as fragile as a soap bubble. But where we were now,
> > there were no dreams floating by, just a flat blankness of space, with no
> > color to the light at all. It was as if the color was gone, replaced with
> > fallen dreams that crumbled to grey ash in the harsh spring days.
> >
> > I didn’t try to save any of it. I wanted no reminders of that spring,
> and I
> > scuttled through the days with my eyes half-closed. Sometimes, but only
> > rarely, I would open the Hellman’s jar a tiny bit, just to get an idea of
> > fall or winter. This would last an hour or two before fading away again.
> >
> > And that summer was the summer I left home, packing up my jars and my
> > memories, and heading out of town, walking down the two-lane highway away
> > from everyone I had ever known. When I couldn’t walk anymore I stopped,
> and
> > I sat on a boulder twice the size of me, and I put my two jars next to
> me,
> > their colors out-of-place in the heat of the summer. These were cool
> clear
> > colors, not the dry desert colors of where I was now, and I resolved to
> > return to those colors.
> >
> > The next day they found me though, pulling up alongside me in the wood
> > paneled station wagon, calling to me. “Annie, come get in the car.”
> >
> > I kept walking, foolishly hoping they would think I was someone else.
> >
> > The car stopped then, and my father, a short man with a smile of regret
> and
> > an air of having been done wrong, got out of the car. This was what I had
> > feared the most, that he would find me and take me back. But I stopped,
> and
> > turned, and looked at him.
> >
> > What I saw on his face was not happiness, but it wasn’t sadness either.
> > “Annie, you have to come home now.”
> >
> > “I can’t see the color of the air there,” I told him, knowing he wouldn’t
> > understand. She would, if she would get out of the car, but she wouldn’t.
> >
> > “Foolishness.” He scratched his chin, overgrown with a few days’ of
> > stubble, and he stood with his legs slightly apart, ready to run after me
> > if I should take to running. Just in case. It had happened before, me
> > deciding to run, but I’d learned that no matter how hard I tried, he’d
> > always catch up to me, grab my arm, and pull me back towards him so hard
> > I’d probably fall, and he wouldn’t catch me.
> >
> > “Air doesn’t have a color. Just get in the car.”
> >
> > My mother peered out the side window at me, her brow furrowed. She never
> > understood why I ran off, though she knew what I meant about the color of
> > the air. Sweat glistened on her upper lip, and on her forehead, and I
> > walked to the car, thinking of how beautiful she was even as she was
> > determined to return me to my prison.
> >
> > Towards the end of summer I took an empty jar, this one having held
> salsa,
> > and I scrubbed it clean with the scrub brush my mother kept for the
> > potatoes, and when I’d done that I scrubbed the label off, and then I
> > scrubbed off all the glue. I wanted it perfect, one perfect jar for the
> end
> > of summer light.
> >
> > I walked out at twilight, past the end of the street where there was
> > nothing but desert, and I held my jar high, willing in the still desert
> > air. The twilight air had more color to it than the daytime air, and the
> > briefest glimmer of hope that sparkled like a worn bit of metal that has
> > just the slightest bit of life left to it.
> >
> > Once the lid was on, keeping in the twilight air so it couldn’t get out,
> I
> > took it home, and I placed it on the shelf next to the fall and the first
> > day of winter, and they glimmered together, far off dreams and the
> present,
> > telling me to hold on, that spring would come again, and that next time
> > perhaps I could capture it. Next time perhaps I would want to capture it,
> > the spring of a new start, the dampness of spring soil waiting for seeds.
> >
> > The color of the air glimmering on my shelves, telling me to hold on,
> that
> > new colors were on their way.
> >
> >
> > Monique Colver
> > An Uncommon Friendship: a memoir of love, mental illness, and friendship
> > Now available at
> > Amazon<
> >
> http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Monique+Colver
> > >
> > and
> > at www.AnUncommonFriendship.com <http://anuncommonfriendship.com/>
> > www.ColverPress.com
> > monique.colver at gmail.com
> > (425) 772-6218
> >
>
>
>
> --
> *-------------------------------------------*
> *‎" "You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, *
> *                                      but you do have some say in who
> hurts you." ** *
> *                    - The Fault in our Stars (John Green)*
>