I need yellow in my life.
Its unadulterated joy. Its sunshine. For me, joy is most definitely yellow. Not lemony, with a green undertone. Not a darker shade with a injection of mustard. Not the distinguished, pale, almost ivory variety. But brilliant, sunny, golden and unashamedly direct. Like a smile. Not a glamorous, camera-friendly smile but a grin that takes over every muscle in a face, and doesn’t give a damn about how the light falls on it, totally un-self-conscious, unbridled, full of teeth, wrinkles and dimples. Like the glowing petals of sun-worshipping sunflowers in a Tuscan field. Like the spring-heralding daffodils on a Cambridge College lawn.
I have cut out the word JOY from sunflower-yellow card, and pinned it to the board above my desk. Yesterday, I bought myself a bunch of yellow roses, and trimmed the stems at different lengths before arranging them in a cobalt blue, earthenware pitcher. They catch my attention as soon as I come into my Scriptorium, ten buds looking in every direction, one of them brushing against the corner of my laptop screen. My eyes yearn for yellow. My lungs long for a deep breath of yellow. My skin craves sunlight. Over the past few months, I have been crocheting small, deep yellow lozenges. One or two at a time, while watching television or listening to the radio. When I have finished the ball of yellow wool, I’ll buy another one, burnt sienna perhaps, or forest green. Perhaps by January, I will have enough lozenges to make a Harlequin scarf to brighten up the grey English winter days. But whatever colours I choose, they will have to make a good team with the first, the original deep yellow, the burst of sunshine.
I find brown grounding and comforting. Green makes me feel elegant. Red is for when I’m not afraid to be noticed. Grey is for slouching over my translations. Blue is for calm, orange for inspiration. And yellow is for rejuvenation, regeneration, for courage, for success. For happiness like a cloudless, sunny sky. For warmth, for strength, for courage.
For the unstoppable joy of the sun.
Scribe Doll
Scribe Doll 
Your post was a gift on such a dreary day as this is. I’m imagining the sun breaking through all this gray. Thank you!
How kind! So glad you enjoyed it.
Yellow roses have long been a favorite of mine. Thanks for writing about the color yellow so beautifully.
Thank you for stopping by and commenting!
Well, all right then! (I take it she likes yellow, folks!) Shades of blue are my favorite colors, but the two together are unstoppable. The cobalt blue vase with the yellow roses sounds like a really good color inspiration.
Actually, the cobalt blue jug wasn’t so much a choice on my part… as the fact that it’s the only jug I own :–)
Ah daffodils. When I do Tai Chi correctly I feel warm and bathed in sunlight no matter what the weather is like. Yellow blocks out the negative, the cold and misery. You still have to face those things and come to terms with them. But it helps to remember the daffodils glowing.
I felt every ounce of the sunlight you describe.
I currently live in a sea, what, an ocean of yellow vineyards! I’ll send you a picture via Twitter or email. It is incredibly nice!
A bath of yellow – how wonderful!
Love the descriptions of how certain colors make you feel, the emotions they evoke. ~nan
Thank you – glad you liked it.