The Color Orange
I am not easily intimidated. So why do I have such a wary, tentative relationship with the color orange? To be sure, it is among the boldest of colors, advancing to meet onlookers with nary a by-your-leave offered. Something seems faintly rude about this.
I blame my customary aversion to orange partly on the influence of one of my house mates in school teaching days in Ohio. She claimed that the color orange burned her eyes way deep inside her head. Or maybe I should blame it on my mother, who was averse to clothing in any colors resembling red. Or maybe it's a matter of seeing orange flowers stealing the show wherever they appear with flowers of other colors. Beyond that, they make perfectly lovely lavenders and pinks look sick and pale. Rude again.
Of late, orange appears often in clothing and in household decorating, and on motor vehicles. I have not embraced it. I'm holding steadfast to my principles.
However, I have made some cautious concessions outside my home. The black iron kettle we used to heat our wash water in is now a planter, and this year I filled it with orange and yellow Bacopa (one of each), and orange and yellow Lantana (combined in each flower cluster), a Chilly Chili red-yellow-orange ornamental pepper, and a frothy white Euphorbia. On the front porch orange Impatiens fills two pots, a brown one and a blue one.
But in the long perennial bed by the road, I've banished all orange flowers to the North end. They cohabit peacefully there with green and white and yellow and red and blue and gold. The other end is for magenta and purple and pinks and lavenders. White and blue and clean yellows romp freely along the length of the border, mixing happily with anything they encounter. In bouquets, I impose similar restrictions. No orange with pinks and lavenders.
I bite my lip when one of my boys buys an orange T-shirt. I can't imagine buying anything for my home in that color. I will most assuredly not buy orange dress fabric or choose to drive an orange vehicle.
But when God paints with the color orange, I can not protest. I love the bold orange patches in the plumage of the Northern Oriole, the orange velvet on a Monarch butterfly, carrot-colored fall leaves, and orange blushes and brush strokes in a sunset. I happily add carrots and orange peppers to relish plates. Oranges, peaches, and apricots, in season, adorn the baskets or bowls on some of the surfaces in my kitchen, and I pile orange squash and gourds and pumpkins into baskets for fall decorations, threading orange Pyracantha berries and tiny Manhattan Euonymous fruits throughout.
So what's not to love about orange? Too much of it. That's what.
If its brashness can be throttled back, as God Himself seems to do when he uses the color orange, either by dishing it out in small doses (flowers, fruits, and berries), infrequent appearances (rare flamboyant sunsets or leaves in fall) or moving it about against a background of green or blue (birds and butterflies), then bring on the orange. But not on my person or my vehicle, or in my house. Only God has permission to ask that of me, and I'm counting on Him not to require anything so immoderate.
I blame my customary aversion to orange partly on the influence of one of my house mates in school teaching days in Ohio. She claimed that the color orange burned her eyes way deep inside her head. Or maybe I should blame it on my mother, who was averse to clothing in any colors resembling red. Or maybe it's a matter of seeing orange flowers stealing the show wherever they appear with flowers of other colors. Beyond that, they make perfectly lovely lavenders and pinks look sick and pale. Rude again.
Of late, orange appears often in clothing and in household decorating, and on motor vehicles. I have not embraced it. I'm holding steadfast to my principles.
However, I have made some cautious concessions outside my home. The black iron kettle we used to heat our wash water in is now a planter, and this year I filled it with orange and yellow Bacopa (one of each), and orange and yellow Lantana (combined in each flower cluster), a Chilly Chili red-yellow-orange ornamental pepper, and a frothy white Euphorbia. On the front porch orange Impatiens fills two pots, a brown one and a blue one.
But in the long perennial bed by the road, I've banished all orange flowers to the North end. They cohabit peacefully there with green and white and yellow and red and blue and gold. The other end is for magenta and purple and pinks and lavenders. White and blue and clean yellows romp freely along the length of the border, mixing happily with anything they encounter. In bouquets, I impose similar restrictions. No orange with pinks and lavenders.
I bite my lip when one of my boys buys an orange T-shirt. I can't imagine buying anything for my home in that color. I will most assuredly not buy orange dress fabric or choose to drive an orange vehicle.
But when God paints with the color orange, I can not protest. I love the bold orange patches in the plumage of the Northern Oriole, the orange velvet on a Monarch butterfly, carrot-colored fall leaves, and orange blushes and brush strokes in a sunset. I happily add carrots and orange peppers to relish plates. Oranges, peaches, and apricots, in season, adorn the baskets or bowls on some of the surfaces in my kitchen, and I pile orange squash and gourds and pumpkins into baskets for fall decorations, threading orange Pyracantha berries and tiny Manhattan Euonymous fruits throughout.
So what's not to love about orange? Too much of it. That's what.
If its brashness can be throttled back, as God Himself seems to do when he uses the color orange, either by dishing it out in small doses (flowers, fruits, and berries), infrequent appearances (rare flamboyant sunsets or leaves in fall) or moving it about against a background of green or blue (birds and butterflies), then bring on the orange. But not on my person or my vehicle, or in my house. Only God has permission to ask that of me, and I'm counting on Him not to require anything so immoderate.
posted by Mrs. I at
5:23 PM
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