Some Purple Prose

When my daughter was small, she always wanted to know what my favorite color was – and she wouldn’t take “I like all colors” or “It depends” as an answer, although both answers are correct.

In case you didn't believe me
 about the purple mouth wash.
Note my towel is purple too.

If I have to have one color as my favorite, I’ll go with the color I always end up choosing, unconsciously, whether for  a pair of socks, a new bowl for the kitchen, or even, recently, a new bottle of mouth wash. 

Purple.

For me, purple is really a family of colors, ranging from light bluish pink to dark reddish blue. These are the colors I (and my mother and my sister) invariably gravitate toward. People who know us refer to this range as “Ursin Purple,” as in “I knew you’d pick that one ‘cause it’s Ursin Purple.”

When it comes to favorite colors, my theory is that people like colors they look good in.

Once, living in a new neighborhood, I wandered into a local department store, looking for work clothes. All of the women’s clothes were gold or olive green. These are not good colors for me, a white person with green eyes and a slight gold tinge to my skin. When I wear them, I look like I should lie down because it’s clear that I am sick and might vomit at any second.

Then, I noticed the mannequins in the store. Though they were stylized, they had kind of African features. Then I noticed everyone else in the store, customers and clerks, were African-American.

Ohhhh … My skin tone wasn’t the one the buyer had in mind.

By the way, I also like that my favorite color is kind of goofy, the favorite of little kids, ancient royalty and the gypsy punk band, Gogol Bordello.