When I was young, mama loved to see me draw with the coloured pencils or they call them crayons? I don’t know. The thing is, every time I drew a small boy playing soccer, she would look at it, smile and say “That is so beautiful.” And so I grew up knowing everything with colour was beautiful. It went on like that until when I got the real sense in me and I happened to encounter situations I would never forget however much amnesia strikes my head.
I have lived hearing people sing that part in Rihanna’s song going “…the reason why the sky is blue.” I have followed the song but I have never got exactly the reason why the sky is blue, however, I haven’t given up, I am still trying to understand why water is represented with blue while it is clear in a glass. I also used to say blue with some white was my favourite colour until when I was asked why I loved blue and I said, “It is just beautiful.” Then I realized the drawings I did while still young had so less of blue and still mama called them beautiful, so blue wasn’t beautiful, to me blue is confusion, this will remain until when I learn the reason why the sky is blue and water in the lakes and oceans on our maps is blue yet when we move close they never give even a tiny shade of blue. Yesterday was Sunday and everyone was talking about the weekend ending and so Monday would come with its blues, I was mixed even more. And so I have been blue-confused-about the colour blue.
There was a day back in high school when our teacher came to class to punish us because we didn’t collect our books on time. Our class prefect said he had taken the books to his office even before the time he had said we should have them taken. Everyone looked at him with a bad eye and he frowned, “why are you making me brown?” he said. And everyone laughed. Personally, I thought he was about to turn brown from his dark complexion and I smiled waiting for the metamorphosis. “No, you are mixing me up. Things have just to be white or black not brown,” he said and left the class and later came back with the books. He smiled and realization lit on his face before he said, “You people are playing me brown!” we laughed and nicknamed him Mr Brown. I later came to understand the browning process he was talking about, It was about mixing black-the lies and white-the truth, to make someone get mixed in between-brown. I smiled. I had been browned too.
Roses are red, red the colour of February, the month of love. I have been wondering why the same red that represents love do represent danger and warning until when I opened my eyes to see and ears to hear many people sharing stories about love. How it is beautiful and hurting. I thought about the red roses too, they are beautiful yet they have those spikes that hurt when you touch them accidentally. I, therefore, came to realize how red, the colour of blood is very delicate, how it stands in between two different and opposite meanings but still makes sense to people. I have often been red when I live my life smiling and caring about people while deep inside I was in pain and lonely. That time went by when I healed the trauma that came with assault but still red lives within me, deep inside my veins, it flows in my body and makes me live. Sometimes I talk and people say they don’t get me, how can you get someone who carries love, beauty, hurt and pain at the same time, why can’t people see the warning sign and understand it is dangerous?
Read Love and the “Mumu Button” – An Article by Namse Udosen, Nigeria
When mama told me about our neighbour’s daughter being yellow, the colour of a ripe mango, I laughed. I thought it was an insult but later I understood it was a piece of advice. Some women had been gossiping in the village that I was in love with the girl. I laughed at that when mama said it before she finished. “Yellow is very deceptive. Do you see how yellow mangoes are? It is the same way this girl is. Ask around they will tell you. She is ripe, beautiful and seems juicy. But deep inside, she is rotten and she has worms and maggots in her.” I didn’t laugh, I quickly denied the allegations and the story ended. I thought of yellow a month ago when I was sick and someone asked me how I was feeling. I said I felt yellow, I might have looked nice outside but deep inside I had pain keeping me in my bed for like three days. My friend laughed asked me if I was having cerebral malaria. I called him a yellow mango. I don’t know why may be because I was yellow.
Years after I changed my favourite colour from blue to purple, someone asked me why I always used a purple background for my WhatsApp status. Before I responded, he asked if I was queer. Why? I asked. His response came like purple is the colour of queerness, a mixture of pink with some dullness makes purple. Pink for femininity and dullness for masculinity, a mixture gives queer, people who love anybody, this is from his explanations. I thought that was rude but I didn’t say, asked about the rainbow. He grinned and asked how I knew that the rainbow was the flag for the LGBTQ group, before I responded, he asked for the second time if indeed I wasn’t queer. I couldn’t take it anymore, I stopped thinking about colours until today as I write about them here. I thought I would ask mama if the colours are still beautiful, she said they are.
And so in the grand scheme of encounters, something as innocent as a shade of a paint or ink carries meaning beyond its beauty and intended meaning. The only urge I have is to grow and learn how to present our understandings and perspectives without really caging others to feel a mistake or making your version the only version. To know is to listen, to listen to your heart, to the little children and to every other being.
