A Particular Shade of Love.

My understanding of Love developed much like a photograph pinned up in a dark room. Hazy, unclear and colourless; washed out with the Red influence of what others try to tell you Love actually is. The standard kind of love that, when people try to explain in any detail, it never quite forms a picture. Every time a colour bloomed into something recognisable on my photograph of Love, it came from experience.

The citrus taste of Orange, the family pet and a favourite toy worn thin from overuse. Yellows of every tone; the sun-warm, childish, familiar colour of summer afternoons and simple trips to the beach. The deep sway of winter leaves and the brighter sound of wind rustling through grass; a palette of Green that taught me how Love danced in all the places that bring you joy.

I found all these colours before recognising what any of them meant, before understanding the depth of the gradient that existed. Discovering how dipping a paintbrush in the ocean will give you a different hue every time is akin to opening your ribcage and watching the beating rhythm change for every type of Love you find. This is what I discovered when I met each blend of soul-touched Blue. The feather-light of the sky you see in a gentle smile that grows into the dusk horizon at sunset. The all too familiar tint of clouds filled to burst over the roiling of the ocean knowing that the deeper you dive the calmer it would be but the less you could breath. And a touch of midnight, silent, calm and intoxicating in its depth.

The last blossom of colour to develop was the vivid drop of bursting laughter that brings tears to your eyes, the churning joy of shared interests, the bubble of your favourite playlist being drowned out by too many voices. The Purple kiss of knowing Love without boundaries, without shame, without judgement. A lilac promise to be true to yourself.

After trying to capture and decipher the hexadecimal code for Love I created my own personalised kaleidoscope of ever-changing pigments and began to accept that there is no particular shade of Love.