Blue

Every decorator knows that blue is a color that cools and calms and refreshes.

Personally, I've had a love affair with blue that goes back to my childhood.  Shoes, for a child of depression era parents were a serious matter.  I wore Buster Browns, or sometimes saddle oxfords.  For church, I had the ubiquitous patent leather Mary Janes.  And then, when I was about 7 or maybe 8 years old, there were Keds.  The original, as far as I know, tennis shoes, Keds were the play shoes of my youth.  They came in white and black, but also red and navy blue.  My young brothers always had the choice of white or black, but for me there was no choice ... I wore white.  White.  Every year I made the case for blue Keds, and every year, I left the store with white ones.  Until ... one amazing day, when I was 10, my parents said "yes" to my navy blue Keds.  They were the best, fastest, coolest shoes ever.

Since that day, I've decorated a home in pale creamy blue tones -- blue flowered upholstery and blue plaid curtains, even, in the first house I ever had any choice with, blue carpet. I have lounged the weekends away in a favorite, old, worn pair of denim jeans.  I've relished the bright, sweet flavor of blueberry pie on a warm summer night.  I have hiked up stony mountain peaks toward a high blue sky.  The closest thing to a prayer, for me, is a golden aspen grove against a mountain sky on a September afternoon.

People often say that they are "blue," when they are feeling down, and here in the U.S. we lay claim to The Blues as our one entirely American musical genre.  I'm not sure why being sad or forlorn equates with the blue wavelengths of the visible spectrum, but there it is.  Blue just doesn't seem sad to me.

Of course, for us, there is the great blue heron that has stood as the totem animal for our family for many years; the majestic, solitary, wading bird that lends its name to this blog.  They still grace the pond behind our home beginning each spring and extending into the summer.  We still call to one another and point out our big, blue-gray, spirit guides, and we all still come from wherever we might be to gather at the windows and watch their slow, listening passage along the shorelines.

Spirit color it is.  Blue.