Curiosity Journal – Day I

Topic: Color

within moments after my mother gave birth to me, i was washed and wrapped up inside a pastel pink baby blanket. it was soft, delicate, laced with little flower prints, of cotton fabric that would wrap in any shape to accommodate my tiny little body. i’m sure you can imagine what it looked like. it was the same type of pink blanket that many infant females are wrapped in from the moment of their birth. the pink blanket. the pink blanket that many females are wrapped inside from the moment of their birth. the blanket they did not choose, but somebody else chose for them, the blanket that says you must be soft, delicate, wear lace with little flower prints, and wrap yourself in any shape to accommodate somebody else’s huge giant ego. the blanket that is the colour our culture wants women to be. pastel pink. a colour so barely there, it is almost white.

and let me tell you, throughout my girlhood i embraced this pink blanket. the pink blanket and how it tells me to be sweet, nice, gentle, un-opinionated, and to blend into my background. but i only spend a small portion of my life being a girl, and i do not want to wear a blanket of a colour that tells me what kind of girl I am supposed to be. i want a blanket that says what kind of woman I want to be.

and i would have chosen a red blanket. red.

the colour of my lips that speak words men listen to. the colour your cheeks turn when you step outside into the bite of the grey february air. the colour of roses that are made into deep, sensual, perfume and the colour of poppies that playfully welcome you into a dream. the colour my mother loves to wear the most and the colour of my first love’s hair. the colour of the blaze of a tree on fire, the colour of water reflecting the sunsetting sky. the colour of our passions, the passions that root from anger and the passions that root from love, and the passions that root from both at the same time. the colour of blood. blood that pumps through your heart and tells you you are alive. alive with a life that began inside of a woman. and for the sake of new life, the colour which every woman can bleed for one week and still not die.

 

like many other women who were given this pink blanket, i outgrew the use of it twenty years ago. but this pink blanket is still under my bed somewhere. i hope i can leave it there, because someday, i do not want to pass it down to my own daughter. i will give her a red blanket.

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