The Color of the Ocean
The prompt for this particular story was “the color of ______.” My title is “The Color of the Ocean.” And I know it hasn’t quite been a week since my last post, but I really wanted to get started. So, here it is.
My family lives on an island. My father, a scientist, and my mother, a writer, thought that living on a shrinking island for the rest of its few remaining years would be very good for their perspective businesses, and thus I was taken away from my best friend Emily and my grandmother and my little cousin Jay-Jay who was living with her. My favorite people in the world.
Not that I don’t love my parents with all my heart, it’s just I miss the other people in my life. And I’ll be gone for 2 years, which is the estimated time my father’s friends (all scientists) had said it would take for the sea to swallow up the tiny little island we now call home.
And there were certain advantages. The colors on a tropical island are amazing. Being a painter, I love colors. The gorgeous blue of the ocean, and the way it turns a kind of gold-orange-yellow color at sunset, like the sun is setting it on fire, but not real fire, a different kind of fire. . . . A godly, no, heavenly fire. A beautiful fire that doesn’t smoke and make your skin burn. Then there’s the texture of the ocean. Sometimes it’s rough, choppy, boiling up like it wants to rise up as tall as the sky and crush it’s enemies and just can’t seem to find the strength, falling back every time it tries to get up.
So I know it won’t be all bad. The small tidal pools that ring the island have the prettiest little starfish that look absolutely perfect for a study.
And I’ll still get mail from them. And to send them small paintings of the island so that they can see all the beautiful colors here. The first thing I’m going to send Emily is a painting of the ocean.
And so I get to work. I set up my easel with a canvas on the sand in front of the water and a sketchbook for testing colors. I squirt a glob of each color on my palette – blue, green, yellow, purple, orange, white, and black. Any other colors I’ll need I can mix. I stare at the ocean, the gentle ripples of waves nearly formed, but not quite. The sea is serene, and calm – perfect. The sun is high in the sky, as it’s about noon, and the sea glitters with reflection of its light, the slight movements of the sea catching the light and dazzling me. I begin mixing colors to match the lovely hue of the ocean. But as I work, the sun shifts, the clouds make a shadow, and the color of the sea has gone from bright, brilliant. sparkling blue to deep sapphire. The color of the ocean had completely changed. I frowned, staring out at the water, then up at the sky. There were some storm clouds up there – could I finish this before it started to rain? Or would I have to wait until tomorrow? I didn’t like the idea, so I resolved to finish as quickly as I could, even thought it’s usually not a good idea to rush a painting.
But again, as I worked, the sea changed again. The storm clouds were over the small island, and my mom was calling to me that I should clean up and come inside so I didn’t ruin my painting. Her hair was blowing all around her face and getting in her mouth. The sea’s texture was changing now too, and I had already sketched out my painting depicting a clam, smooth sea. I went inside, taking my supplies in with me.
But I didn’t give up. I worked on it every day for a week, but every time I set up my easel, the sea was different. I tried to adapt, and then the sea would change while I worked. This was driving me insane. I just couldn’t get the right color to paint the ocean.
On the last day in the week, I realized something – the sea doesn’t have a color. It changes all the time, too much to be able to have a definite color. I felt a little frustrated, but I thought that Emily would understand.
So instead of painting her a picture of the sea, I put this all on paper and sent it on the mail boat, promising her a picture of something else next time.
