Describing Colour to a Blind Person

 

If I were to describe color to a blind person, I would tell them that,

Colors are emotions. They are how stories are told. They are how you feel, sometimes sad, sometimes happy. Colors are feelings. They are how you experience every day. They are emotive, sometimes making us crazy, sometimes cracking our ribs, colors are our little friends who carry us from day to day. Colors are the lenses through which we experience our senses;

Red is the heat of the moment. It is the wave of immense feelings you get that course throughout your body. It is the lively demeanor you get that you do not want to fade when you are dancing and no one is watching. Red is a burst of passion, like when you are in love and your heart feels like it’s beating twice as fast as it should, or as of your face is gleaming more than it does on the regular, red is the feeling of intensity. The feeling of more than, the feeling of love.

Blue is calmness. It is the breeze that hits you first on a cold morning in the beach. Blue is the gentleness of a friend’s lap on a boring day. It is a soothing song, like a lullaby. It carries the scent of ice and cool water. It is purity, it is deep, but it is gentle, it is so quiet, reserved and it is the color of sleep and dreams and the sky.

Green is life. Green is being heard, being seen. It is the smell of the grass and the joy of a good morning. Green is the touch of leaves and the feeling of breathing. It is good, calm, serene and inciting. Green is the good friend whose house is always open to walk in whenever.

Yellow is a tickle. It is a child’s laughter. The kind of laugh where you can tell their little ribs hurt. Yellow is gentle laughter and the small mindless moments of joy we collect within the day. It is the echo of a good song that you heard somewhere. Yellow is the memory of a person who said, “you look good today” at the office. Yellow is golden and has a charm that is never-ending to it. Yellow is caring and kind and it sits with you for a while. It is goofy.

Purple is a little of a mystery. It is a cheerly color. Purple is wealthy. Even classy. It laughs too much but it doesn’t. It whispers but it is loud sometimes. It holds secrets and that makes it sacred. It is velvety and silky at the same time. It looks like wonder, like something you would want to indulge in. It is free of danger; it is free of fear; it is a quiet moment of wonder. Purple is like a fairy tale.

White is purity. It is the feeling of snow falling on your bare face on the first day of winter. It is soft like cotton; light and it is freedom. It does not hold back, it does not hide, it is present all the time. White feels like a genuine hug after a bad day. If feels like your mother calling just when you needed her to. White is a gentle dance to a good, good song.

Black is deep. Black is the unknown. It is the folktale that children do not want to hear at night. It is silent but loud. It is heavy like the weight of a bad day that you can’t wait to see the end of. It is still, however, and shadows tend to creep around it. It is the silence of the 3 am night and the noise of the roaring waves of the ocean during a storm. Black is stern and strict.

Grey is in between. It is random and careless. It doesn’t know but it knowns. It sits here and there and everywhere; grey is an almost. Almost said, almost did, almost met, almost loved. It is the heavy feeling of acceptance when you know things would have gone a better way. Grey’s silence is intimidating. It is like being here but your mind is elsewhere, grey is like absence, not white, not black, just grey and in between.