The window past my computer screen stares northward with little obstruction. Homebound, I’ve watched the blue sky most workdays for almost 11 months.
As last year’s calendar lurched toward the winter solstice, its blue deepened. The week before Christmas, on the year’s shortest day, the northern sky was sapphire – a deep blue over a wash of purple.
Don’t worry. This isn’t some clichéd testimonial about a smallish heart overcome by nature’s majesty. I don’t claim a sudden awareness of my smallness in the universe.
No, this is about color.
“The key of D is daffodil yellow, B major is maroon, and B flat is blue,” wrote Marian McPartland, the jazz pianist and longtime NPR host.
The color palette has 24 shades of blue. They range from sky, pale powder and October’s baby blue, to royal, space and dark Prussian. I saw each of them through an empty window.
And was taught humility.
Artist Marc Chagall likely said it best: “Color is all. When color is right, form is right. Color is everything, color is vibration like music; everything is vibration.”
Third of three parts. The first two: “Homeward bound” and “Zipper, open for business.”
