Lady in Pink

If you had visited my site a few times before now, you know something’s amiss today. My colors are different. Gone are the hues of fall that I am partial to.

I’m all pink! Even my blog title is set on pink leaves.

Have I turned into a pink fan? Not really. Although I like pink on occasion, it was never in my mind to have a pink website. So why am I pink?

I am trying to put myself in my friend Sylvia’s pink shoes. She is a pink lady—from head to toe, every day of her life. Although I have always seen her in pink (all shades, tints, and hues), I didn’t know how much she was into it till last week!

We were having dinner prior to a rehearsal of a dance number we were to perform for a big Rotary bash, and we showed each other’s cell phone photos.

A lot of her photos were of her latest tour abroad. When I saw her luggage and balikbayan boxes, I cried, “Your suitcases and balikbayan box covers are in pink! Everything about you is pink!” What an accurate observation. Duh.

“Why, what colors should I be in?” she asked, surprised I even asked.

“I thought you simply liked to wear pink! I didn’t know you really love pink!”

She opened her bag (in three shades of pink) and showed me her make-up case, coin purse, wallet, and cell phone pouch. Guess what their color was? Name it in one note.

“Why do you like pink so much?” This I needed to know.

She gave me a look that asked, Why is the sky blue?

“When did this, this love affair with pink start?”

“A long time ago,” she replied. “I used to wear all colors, too. But they never felt right. Whenever I wore pink, I felt really comfortable, I was me. So I started wearing pink and stopped wearing all other colors.”

It makes sense.

“It must be your favorite color,” I remarked. Duh.

Then she told me anecdotes about how pink always saved her day. In one of her travels to Europe, fellow passengers were apprehensive about the strict immigration officers in their port of entry. And surely they were.

But when Sylvia got to them with her all-pink outfit and luggage, they broke into big smiles and chorused, “Hey, lady, pink must be your favorite color!”

As Sylvia and I went on with our colorful chat, I remembered a book I read sometime ago, but which I didn’t believe, on the dynamics of colors. One chapter talked about how the pink color evokes peace—it can calm down the hottest of tempers. An experiment was conducted in one prison cell. The walls were painted pink and the most rowdy and warring criminals were put inside the room. Within eight hours, their behavior changed and they calmed down.

Now where did I keep that book? I have to read it again in the context of Sylvia's penchant for pink.

That’s why I decided to experiment on this post with the color pink. Aside from paying tribute to Sylvia, I want to see what sort of mood it will give me. Will this blogsite make me feel, uh, right? Will pink keep me calm? 

Mired in complications of daily living, truth to tell, we all need our comfort zones: jobs, friends, places, things, or colors. I can rattle off a few of mine and I am sure you can, too. Should I then be surprised about Sylvia's love for pink?

In my book, “God’s Favorite Color,” I asked my young readers what God’s favorite color might be. Is it pink? He made our tongues, some flowers, pigs and kittens pink. Is it pink?

How awesome that He made rainbows, too. The book ends with:

All the colors, even those without a name,
God gave them all, their beauty all the same.

They come together in a lovely rainbow,
That wonderful arch we’ve come to know.

God's grace does come in all colors. In Sylvia’s case, it comes in pink.