Creative Writing Archives

The shade of blue called wild blue yonder

#7D96BD: Wild Blue Yonder

When I think of blue, I think of Maggie Nelson’s Bluets, a collection of her unwinding thoughts and memories associated with the color and I understand it. I feel that inner need to pull apart a color and examine its web of associations. I too have so many thoughts and memories around the color blue. So many associations with this particular shade.

In general, blue is a color I think of when I think of expansion. The color of the sky on a sunny day, for example, is one of the most freeing colors I can think of. On the flip side of that, are much darker shades. Navies and indigos are expansive in a different way; they can be never-ending in their depth. Think of emotions like sadness or despair. These associations are fairly common and ones most of us make as they are so engrained in our culture but I love to pinpoint all the shades in between. What emotion is the color of your mother’s faded denim jacket? What color is that exact feeling of anguish?

This shade, hex code #7D96BD, is the color of my yesterday. The color of my last number of weeks. It is blue but not too blue, a shade dipping towards periwinkle. In comparison to lighter shades, to the shade of blue on a summer’s day, it is darker. Quieter and more reserved. When I found this shade, I was looking at a photo I had taken recently of the sky and the frozen water just as the sun had set. There was still a line of pink and orange, a soft light on the horizon which is important to note. #7D96BD is the feeling of restlessness, uncertainty but it is not without hope. It is a color that wouldn’t be possible without the soft pink light nearby. It is the color of wandering when wandering turns to searching.

Its name, Wild Blue Yonder, rings true. My life right now feels wild, and at times, somewhere in the distance beyond my grasp. There is a path close by and a journey ahead. I’m just searching for the right place to plant my feet and begin.

On April 4, 2019

Creative Writing• Poetry

Unexpected Sunset

I was making dinner and I got a message.
Go look outside, she said, go look at the sunset.
My apartment is small, with four rooms and two windows
that don’t see much light so I had no idea.
I pulled my coat on and hurried out.
I was running to this sunset,
suddenly the only thing that mattered.
I hurried past the taller buildings to the park
and the sky was leaking shades of pink and purple.
It was beautiful and fleeting,
there one minute and gone the next.
I would’ve missed it; I almost kissed it.
And so I started thinking,
how great it would be to get a nudge,
a tap on your shoulder,
a moment or two before your life changes.
Stop what you’re doing and look around,
you’ll want to remember this later.
In a minute, you’re going to fall in love.

On March 18, 2019

Creative Writing• Poetry

– 21

There was a frostbite warning when I waited for the bus. I had my new jacket on,
the black one I bought on clearance. Twelve dollars bought me a winter coat

with a sticky zipper and bright orange lining. The material is more slippery
than my other jacket, more slick and yet, soft. This new shell felt foreign,

standing there in the cold, the inside unfamiliar on my skin. You know when
something new takes a while to feel like yours? It was not my jacket yet.

It had been sunny earlier. Bright blue sky, deceiving enough to make you believe
it was warm out. So I left my mittens at home. I left my scarf. Instead, my hands

wrapped around a paper cup from Tim Horton’s. Earl grey tea, milky brown.
The heat from the cup leaking out between my fingers like life from a body.

There were ten of us huddled in the shelter, necks bent against the wind,
fists stuffed into pockets. Two of us spoke Japanese. One of us was laughing.

Seven of us were underdressed. All of us were tired. Our bodies growing stiff,
ears stinging as we waited. How many of us were in love? How many of us lonely?

I stood there dressed in a stranger’s jacket waiting for a sign. An epiphany.
A bus hurtling down the street in the dark. Headlights bright in the snow.

On February 24, 2019

Creative Writing• Poetry

The Plants on My Windowsill

The plant by the window has grown again. A spider plant
with leaves stretching out, exploding in every direction.

It grows every time I turn my back. Silent & slow while I sleep.
While I watch tv. Cook dinner. Every time I turn around, it has grown,

new shoots appearing that were never there before. Sometimes
I think I’m imagining it. Remembering it wrong from the last time.

But yet, it grows. It has to. Too slow to see but still alarmingly fast.
The plant in its small red pot didn’t exist six months ago and here it is,

growing silently on its perch in the corner, drunk on water and meager
glimpses of winter sun. I wonder what it’s growing to, what God

it’s reaching up to kiss. It shares this space with me. The plant
and its brothers, all of us living & breathing in my small living room.

Last week, I killed my aloe plant. Fed it too much water and it died.
It sat softly on my table for a year. Growing when no one was looking,

shy & unassuming. I was only trying to pay it some extra attention,
some extra love. Do you think it knew? Do you think it knew it was love?

On February 13, 2019

Creative Writing• Poetry

Here & Gone

I lay beside you in the half-light, your hand tucked into the curve of my side.
At midnight I get up & put the kettle on to boil, bring a mug down from the shelf.

I turn my palm over and then over again, a grey silhouette that shouldn’t belong
to me. Have you noticed yet, I’ve been turning to fog when you’re not looking?

There’s music coming from the bar around the corner. A band is covering
The Romantics & I keep thinking of all the places I’ve left pieces of myself behind.

We take turns defining our bodies. This is a knee & this isn’t. This is you slipping
through me. You bring your hand to my chest; a heart bleeding into another heart.

Yes, I think I’ve let a ghost in. Yes, I think it knows me well. It rustles around
in my skin now, restless. I grieve myself in the distant way of an old pain.

The kettle shrieks. I look around & you are everywhere. Your hereness
like a smudge on everything you touch; my goneness wipes away any trace of me.

Here and gone, we are both falling into someplace else. You pitching forward
in the night trying to fill up space with your bright orange light, throbbing in the dark.

Me, wet & shining & translucent, scurrying back into the weeds, into the mud.
Am I ghost? No. A ghost trying to be a body again. Smoke trying to be fire.

On November 15, 2018

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