On coloring

As I write this post, I am coloring.

I am coloring a sign that says, "The Haunt of Macbeth: Macbeth hath murder'd sleep."

It is for my door.

I am just tired enough to wax philosophical about coloring. For instance, it's rather pleasant the way a paper can first be empty, quite blank, a tabula rasa if you're feeling Latinate, and then it has meaningful black lines on it. Deciding the black lines are good but there's more to do, rather like creation after the first day, I pull out a box of colored pencils. Art is a form of subcreation, after all.

I decide to start on the fourth word: "Macbeth." Red is a good color for Macbeth; he was, as Malcolmn put it, a brutish murderer. Red is a good color anyway, but particularly appropriate for one who sheds blood and comes himself to a bloody end. Literally. His head gets chopped off and dragged back onstage. "He who sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." I've never quite understood how it is red is such a contradictory color. Red is the color of blood. The life is in the blood, which is good; but shed blood is bad. Red seems to be the color of passion. I clicked on red on a "shortest personality quiz in the world" and it gave me some sort of nonsense about repressed instincts. Or something. I remember being unconvinced.

Slowly the letters fill up with color, as if they were glasses and I was pouring them full of some juice. Paler than kool-aid, lighter than cranberry juice, redder than grapefruit juice.

I move on to the second word, "Haunt." It's a bright, living green. Green is another contradictory color. Green is for life and leaves and vivacity, but also for envy and illness. Jealousy used to be orange; why it switched I don't know. It's like that line in Much Ado: "He is neither sad nor sick, nor merry nor well, but civil, Count, Seville as an orange, and much of that jealous complexion."

The haunt turns green. I go ahead to a slatey blue pencil for the in-between words. It's almost a thundercloud blue, suitable for the impending doom that impends and looms over Macbeth. Serves him right for believing witches and sorcerers. "What! Can the devil speak true?" Even the devil quotes Scripture when it suits his purpose, and if it can kill dozens of innocents and drag him and his wife to hell, he might think it worth the effort.

The words "Macbeth hath murder'd sleep" yet remain their natural ecru color. But even worse than Macbeth murdering sleep is a blog and a sign. While the Greeks search for wisdom and the Jews seek a sign, this girl types blog posts abour coloring signs. It's not the same.