Earth tones, jewel colors, brights that glow, black and white and I am NOT going to allow myself to fall into a cute rhyme with "rainbow" as was my first instinct NO NO NO.

...oops.

Anyway, as I walked through a mall this afternoon, a small bag of new six-dollar summery spaghetti-strap tank tops in hand (current relative lack of summer notwithstanding), I looked in the shops and I thought about colors. Bright glowy pinks and oranges, neon blues; sports team primary red white and navy blue; pale pastel, ruffles and frills, too-busy patterns: I have never loved any of those things. Other people obviously do. Not everyone likes simple lines, patterns quiet-to-none, and muted natural hues tending darkish, which is fine: leaves more for me. Why do different people like different things? How much of it is innate harmonics with my brain chemistry, or something, and how much of it is internalized awareness of what my clothing choices might say about me to others?

Which leads me to ponder that I have the means to make such choices, for I then remember an article I read a few years ago wherein someone(s) in Africa receiving donated clothing assumed that the previous owners of the clothing had died, for who would throw away perfectly usable clothes if they still fit?

copyright 2003 carrie lynn king.