Through my eyes, the color of love is yellow; It's the color of newly blossomed buttercups placed beneath the chin of my best friend during recess. It’s the color of freshly made parippu, peppered with hand-picked karapincha, and cooked in a red clay pot by my tired, overworked mother. It's the color of my dog, Buddy. His knobby head resting on my chest as we hide from the chaos unfolding in the kitchen; my parents’ piercing bellows erupting through the groaning wooden floors below my feet.
You and I observe things differently. Our senses ever so slightly varying, yet entirely indistinguishable. Of course, there are scientific reasons for our differences in perception. I could tell you about the various types of cones that make up our eyes. But, I’d rather focus on the more playful perspective:
We have no ‘unique experiences’ anymore. Not in a world of eight billion people, half of us determined to express ourselves online. Our every thought catapulted through the invisible wires oozing out of our beloved electronics, buzzing and whirring quietly as they journey to a parallel mind across the way. I can’t wrap my head around the concept of technology. Sitting in a vacant, unburdened landscape filled with greens and blues, I am often overcome with discomposure. How did we get so advanced when we started with nothing but our uninhabited flesh and the steadfast soil beneath our toes? It feels like a troll's riddle. Would he accept your answer? Or mine?
A friend of mine feels love is comparable to the imperceivable whiteness of sunlight seen through the branches of a billowing tree. She sees it as similar to matter, a force unable to be created nor destroyed, indecipherable to our circumscribed minds. It exists beyond the parameters of communication. She feels love could be god, only without the religious subtext; god, to her, is in everything, unable to be heard or discerned, touched or detained: a metaphysical essence that acts as a beacon of comfort and safety.
I see the world in shades of green and red. The trees always potent and on the qui vive, stop signs catching the light in a technicolor fashion. I’m drawn to the leaves and grass, the hues of verdun and fern that flow from the beating heart of our tender, maternal earth. Every morning, I wake up and gaze at the red man with square glasses that lives on the wall of every apartment I've called home; a painting I did after my first breakup.
There are times I hear guitar strings being plucked softly by the blonde man living in the home below me, yet my roommate hears nothing. There’s a pot on the stove filled with rice for our homemade sushi dinner that’s been cooking for ten minutes too long. I smell only the familiar mix of our combined scents, yet my roommate is overcome with the offensive aroma of the burnt rice. My friends all fear the same train station, yet I feel nostalgia for my old commute to the job that employed some of the most admirable people I've had the pleasure of co-existing with. I feel a need to defend the uncaring, inanimate train station: “It’s not that bad. You just have to block out all the noise!”
When I look back on my life, I am overwhelmed with a feeling of guilt. My mind forgoes all the goodwill and mirth I’ve had in my life, focusing instead on the anxiety and uncertainty. I’ve come to know guilt as one of my default emotions: a sensation I’ve existed in for so long it's been kneaded into a cozy nest, a place of refuge from the reproachful, violated outside world. I feel guilt when I talk to my mother. A woman who has bent every which way to clothe and house me and my siblings, to provide despite a lack of means. A woman who is quick to manipulate and play the victim; one who is fragmented within herself, longing for acceptance and unconditional love. Why can’t I give it to her? Will I ever be loved unconditionally? Will she?
We perceive things differently. Our eyes are primed to distinct shades, our genetic makeup infinitely different. Yet, we are the same. We are a community made up of unique yet likeminded shadows. We nourish one another intellectually, we smile when passing by, we are enriched by our shared connections. I live in a bustling metropolis, my neighbors are indefinitely busy, as am I. Yet we have something in common: our home, our city, our work ethic, our dreams of success in a city swarming with equally driven individuals. Do you know your neighbors?
We are nothing, unexisting nonentities, if not for the relationships and connections we make with one another. I am who I am because of the people who have come and gone throughout my life. The lesions and lusters they’ve weaved into my soul live forever within me. I am nothing without the experiences and perseverance that has brought me thus far. Despite that, I am everything. We are everything. I am you and you are me. Yet, we are infinitely and cosmically different.
