The Long Habit of Color, and a Laura Geringer Note

Ever since I started writing poetry (I was nine years old, I was a tomboy, I was a loner), I was color obsessed. Not that I could name all the colors, and not that I could paint, but I found that I could not write a poem into my blank journals unless I'd watercolored the whole page first—given the poem a bed of molten color to ride on. This made for some rather soggy poetry journals, some deeply porous word choices, and a whole lot of feeling to go along with not-so-much story or depth. Still, I worked, color sensationalized, in bliss.

It was during the writing and editing of House of Dance that it became clear to me just how essential color remains in the way I dream stories, and tell them. "Re: Color.," Laura Geringer, my impeccable editor, wrote, "I felt a bit that as I was moving through the manuscript, I was going from black and rather stark white-- to black and white with hints and touches of color--to blazing full color at the end. Was that conscious on your part? I think whether it was or not, it's brilliant. Almost wizard of oz-like in a way. We start out in Kansas in shades of gray and end up in a technicolor world that promises a richness and vibrancy of experience that transcends the pain of disease and death. I loved that about the book. Perhaps it could be brought out even more, in Rosie's thoughts & perceptions?"

I was thinking about this yesterday, while walking the paths of Chanticleer and looking over the shoulders of the painters who had gathered there to work. I was thinking of how color is my medley, my soundtrack. Of how I remain the loner tomboy, riding color across those blank pages.