Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power
to make us think things we like to think.
– Robert Henri
As Easter drew near last month, I thought I would take my previous post A Perfect Red and just dye it blue like an egg. But the damn thing resisted the dye so now my March post is post March. Had I not failed so well, I might never have discovered the true or not so true secrets of blue(s). Turns out a gauzy pale blue scarf I bought on a Cinderella impulse had tricks to teach me. It also took the dark of night and break of dawn, the pull of tides and distance, to spring the spirit free.
There is no blue without yellow and without orange.
— Vincent Van Gogh
I want to love iris, periwinkle, cornflower, cerulean, cobalt, azure, ultramarine, Oxford, Air Force, French, Egyptian and Persian blue, but how can you warm to a color swathed in inertia? Well ok – navy can impress with its elegance, Tiffany blue twice tempted me, and indigo lures me with its promise of exotica. But blue by itself resides in the Bermuda triangle of color.
A haze of blue pervades Kate Braverman’s short story “Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta” as the vulnerable but creative protagonist falls prey to a man who ignites her fantasies with tales of the forbidden and far off destinations. Once she succumbs to his dangerous seduction and glimpses the other side, badass Lenny disappears, her dreams of the China Sea and possibility now infected with blue. In The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) blue not only symbolizes the fantasy and illusion of Gatsby’s dream, but also his melancholy and loneliness. To attract Daisy, he throws lavish parties in his blue gardens (blue lawn, blue livery) but never takes part in them. At the end of the novel, disillusioned with the American dream, Nick sees the blue smoke of leaves in the air. In Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison’s debut novel The Bluest Eye (the first of her many explorations of race and gender) the young black protagonist Pecola Breedlove believes if only she had blue eyes, she would at last belong. Fickle blue.
Our culture celebrates true blue – the great tranquilizer. Considered beneficial to the mind and body, it slows metabolism, produces a calming effect and ranks as number one marketing choice of banks, airlines, hospitals, healthcare and other organizations aiming to instill trust, confidence and loyalty. Hmm…. I also question claims that a blue room stimulates creativity. Being holed up in a space enveloped by blue, sounds more like a haunting blues song by Amy Winehouse or Tom Waits than a place to nourish an embryo of inspiration. I’ll take the sea.
When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.
– Rainer Maria Rilke
Matisse and Picasso knew the hold of blue. Influenced by tribal art, Matisse experimented with the vibrant colors of a Fauvist palette to create The Blue Nude and Dance using predominantly blue. Toward the end of his life and in poor health, he exchanged bold brushstrokes for scissors, focusing on form to produce his famous series of Blue Nude paper cut-outs. Between 1900 and 1904 Picasso sank into a severe depression, his paintings of outsiders a moody vision in blue. Not well received at the time, his work from The Blue Period remains some of his finest.
So let me get back to that gauzy pale blue scarf. Maybe someday I’ll tell you how I learned to wrap and knot it one night in a far away country, what it revealed at dawn – what it foretold. With time and distance and a horizon line – the sea with a splash of green, the sky with a blaze of orange, a stirring from the breeze and sounds of the tide, I resurrect a not forgotten love. Let his spirit soar.
Once in a blue moon we all disappear into the blue. Not so bad if you emerge anew. Hallucinogenic blue, melancholy blue, true blue? If you’re going to cavort with blue(s) you need to breathe life into it, energy. Like the sea, like the sky, like the wind – ever changing. Unlike the precision and passion served up by crimson, scarlet or carmine, blue undulates to its own rhythm. Tricky blue.
The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.
– Jacques Cousteau
I loved this. Love blue, oceans, rivers and streams. But the ocean blue pulls me to a grounded place and I can re-live a part of my childhood when we would drive to the seaside at Long Island Sound. The taste of the salty sea made me happy and I still think I can bob along and dive under waves and not get pulled in a current off course. Well, maybe a little bit, but I can swim back to my base point too.
Thanks Martha.
Martha this is one of your finest pieces ….forgetmenot blue xxx
Love Pat xxx
What fun to read this while sitting in a New York apartment enveloped by a sea of honking horns and scream screeching ambulance sirens. The royal blue of our yoga mat on the floor just caught my eye like never before! Thanks once again for the poetry and magical imagery.
This post touched the memory of when I lived in Claremont and was feeling"blue" I would drive to Laguna ad sit on the beach and contemplate the ocean in all its mystery. Soon, my "blues" were absorbed into the blue of the sky and the water in front of me, as if the waves took it from me and swept it far away.
It popped into my mind this morning that you were a "creationist"–not in terms of non-evolution but in terms of creating thoughts, ideas, and a forward thinking view of the world. Keep up the good work.
Hi Martha. Thank you for the enchanting, poetic and inspirational (as always) piece. I definitely relate!
Paula
Martha, this is one of my favorite pieces by you. Such beautiful words. I lately have found myself being more drawn toward the ocean blue and nature itself (probably a subconscious desire to have a cathartic experience to alleviate the stresses of life). Thank you for this work of art.
As a little girl my mother told me blue was my best color – because I have blue eyes. My sister got yellow because she had brown eyes and light, flaxen hair. I kind of resented it. I loved bright colors and patterns. Blue was so boring. But red equated the devil and only vulgar people wore purple. We didn't have a lot of money for clothes so our wardrobes were pretty Spartan. A white blouse and a pale blue or yellow one to mix and match with navy and gray skirts. When we grew up and started dressing ourselves my sister and I both went overboard on colors and prints, especially reds. To this day we still spend entirely too much money on colorful dresses and tops. But Mom was right. Blue suits me, and I have come to love its many shades. And my sister looks best in earth tones. Mom eventually took a cue from her brazen girls and started wearing colors too. Turns out her favorite color was purple – GASP – Grandma must have rolled in her grave. .