let's be real: jungle green is the shit. it looks pretty much like your average green in crayon form, but when you color with it, it's a bright shade of teal. when i was a little kid with a mop of bright red hair who liked to wear those teeny yellow Potato Head glasses, i loved me some jungle green. i can remember coloring a swatch of it on a piece of paper, showing it to my color-blind dad, and asking "what color do you see?" (this was before i got in trouble for using a pen to draw my entire family on the kitchen table and for coloring on all my nails with red marker). my mind was (and is) boggled by the idea of color-blindess; i get happy vibes when i see colors... how is possible that someone can't see them?
today i came across this post, which made me think more about color blindness and the idea that people don't see colors in the same way. i've also read about synesthesia--when one sense automatically creates another. while i don't hear colors, i have associated numbers and letters with specific colors for as long as i can remember. i just learned that that's called grapheme → color synethesia, and it can help people be good at spelling. maybe that's part of the reason i always ended up in those terrifying spelling bees. i once had to spell the word crag. luckily i remembered seeing it in a book of spelling bee words, so i faired better than the kid who spelled "balm" "b-o-m-b" because of the principal's texan accent.
back to the future: i still love jungle green, as evidenced by my reaction to my discovery/purchase of a $5 teal breadbox at target. jungle green, you must really be my power color. thanks for making me smile all these years. love, Marie
