“If each day falls

inside each night,

there exists a well

where clarity is imprisoned

We need to sit on the rim

of the well of darkness

and fish for fallen light

with patience.”

Pablo Neruda

January can be a month full of lessons about patience filled with moments of melancholy.  February often follows with a slight thaw.  Most of us who live in cultures that value productivity over creativity, wouldn’t even dream of taking a mental day for doing nothing in particular, but today on this gloomy, gray day in the Gers, after working hard for 2 weeks on an editing job,  I decided to do just that – to follow where my heart led me and  do nothing in particular.

I pulled some books about color from my shelves and read with fascination about the color blue. With titles like, Color: A Natural HIstory of the Palette, Color: The Story of Dyes and Pigments and Indigo: In Search of the Color that Seduced the World, how could I go wrong? Blue, I learned,  is a nostalgic color that dwells in the past. chimerical and unreal.  The blue used to color the shutters we’ve come to identify with Provence, was originally a completely utilitarian color.  To prevent wood from being eaten by termites, the wood trim on houses was painted with a wash that contained copper sulphate, the same blue-pigmented chemical compound that was, and still is, sprayed on grapevines to prevent mildew and rot.

Blue is the color of the heavens.  It is the color of royalty for the church and of European aristocracy. It is the number one favorite color of people around the world.  In fairytales, Prince Charming was known as “The Blue Prince” and the God Krishna has blue skin.  The color blue is associated with depth and stability, wisdom, intelligence, faith and truth.  Blue also slows the metabolism and produces a calming effect.  The paler the blue, the more freedom we tend to feel. – the darker the blue, the more peaceful.  Raoul Dufy, the French Fauvist painter said, “Blue is the only color which maintains its own character in all its tones.  It will always be blue.”

Back to looking through my photo files I realize blue isn’t generally an appealing color for food or drinks, except when you’re sitting in the hot sun on a summer afternoon drinking beer in the village of Éauze.  The color blue is rarely found in fruits and vegetables. Blueberries and are all that I can think of – others tend to lean towards shades of violet and purple.  I know the color of love is red, but here’s a nod from my files to Valentine’s Day.

A lot of sayings illustrate the color blue: true blue, talk a blue streak, blue-blooded, blue stocking, blue ribbon, out of the blue, once in a blue moon, blue sky thinking. The color blue evolved as a symbol of depression in American culture – feeling blue or singing the blues, but I have to say listening to the King of Blues, B.B, that is, makes me feel anything but blue on this first day of February in my little village of Ayzieu.