Of Blue

The air is thick with something I can’t quite define.

There is desolation in chaos and clutter, too much of it. I do not live in a messy, unclean house, I simply could not. Home, IKEA, Places With Books - the one trinity I believe in. We all have temples, they are all to be revered. I live, however, in a house that often bests me. It is endearing how objects come out to dance overnight, how they swiftly breed and pup when you’re not looking. Endearing and overwhelming. Mine is not a case of ingrained disorganisation. I do in fact need order and tidiness to thrive. When book piles and unfiled papers and unfolded clothes reach a certain level - for a certain level must also be allowed, museums make for very poor housing - I am frantically driven to make it all better. I know that there is a very thin red line between Comfortably Lived In and Beyond Bearable, one I am forced to ride over and over again, for lack of proper storage.

I have often thought, sometimes said, that I would love to live in an aquarium with books. This isn’t easily understood. There is one room that is absolute sanctuary, my bedroom. No TV, no desk, sanctuary. In my bedroom it must always be Shabbat, the madness and demands of the outside world receding and allowing my fingertips to be longer than the rest of me, they could touch anything, go anywhere. In my case, and this might surprise you, sanctuary is mostly white w deep blue accents. THIS blue:

This is the colour that single-handedly allows me to breathe. My obsession with it is an old thing. My mother tells me that I refused to be clad in anything but blue from a very early age. Much like my bedtime stories, the clothing colour scheme was not allowed to change. That was surely one of the very first necessary maternal lies, the tedious morning ritual of assuring me, at an age when I didn’t even know the colours yet, that every single thing I was wearing was, of course, blue. I would then go abt my business fully content. A tad neurotic, but content. As phases go it didn't last too long, but it had long-lasting consequences.

Mother also tells me, and that would explain it to a great extent, that cobalt blue was the exact colour of my eyes when I was born and that as a baby people always commented on it because it was so unusual and even bizarre. Blue, blue, blue, blue. BLUE. Lorenz and Tinbergen, behold the colour-imprintee.

Humans live best when each has his place to stand, when he knows where he stands in the scheme of things and what he may achieve. Destroy the place and you destroy the person.
Bene Gesserit Teaching

Dune. Rarely, if ever, can I say this: both perch on the branches of my soul, both the film and the book. One long, slow rapture, both are home, a desert full of me. I’ve never much fancied places with an abuse of greenery, trees and leafy hills. I like arid landscapes, I like that my eyes can see there and beyond and the air sometimes is so hot it trembles before you, nearly palpable. House Atreides of the sea, and Arrakis and the spice. Perfect.

The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called spannungsbogen - which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.
--from The Wisdom of Muad'Dib by the Princess Irulan

And there among the Fremen I found the eyes of Ibad, all blue, blue-in-blue, the Fremen who dream of water and ride the worm. In a different way, it was not dissimilar to what I felt my first time in Israel, where I viscerally knew, for the first time in my life, what it felt like to be one of us. The Fremen were Blue, phosphorescently so.

My dream house was, of course, blue, furnished mostly in blue, populated with transparent cobalt blue objects that would allow the light through in that heart-stopping liquid way. I have been known to buy things simply bcs they were the right colour. They say my name, I heed. What am I to do with the milk pan now? Bought in the Old City in Jerusalem and never used - but rightly blue, and therefore rightly mine. One day in 2003 I realised it simply must no longer be. Much like our food, our souls are healthier when fed a varied regimen. My living-room is looking pretty in white, red, aubergine and light wood. My office is white, orange and pink. My kitchen is metallic grey, apple green and deep blue. I live better in a more colourful world. My baby eyes have finally come into their own and are taking adult steps.

And yet. I still have a deep need for transparent cobalt blue glass, always will. I too breathe through my eyes in a very narrow UV range. Sun rays through cobalt blue glass are, to me, a truly mystical experience. That’s where I go to to lick my wounds, or celebrate the fact that there aren’t any.

There is a sparse but vivid tranquillity within me tonight. No good reason for it to be so really. The last few days studying for the last exam were gruesome. I am tired. Bone-tired. I haven’t had a holiday since 2001 and no amount of blue can change what that is doing to me. At the risk of surprising you again I could tell you the night before my exam I couldn’t fall asleep. I slept for an hour and a half, wrote my exam, could barely stay awake on the ride home - and then couldn’t fall asleep at all until 7 pm. And then 8 pm. And then 10 pm. And then I was up at 3.30, and fell sleep again at 6 am, and woke up at 11 am absolutely exhausted and disoriented. To celebrate what will be a 10-day period of freedom from studying (9 exams coming up in September), I decided to clear some room for the most important books. I long ago ran out of book space, they rest in triple rows and cause me perpetual guilt. My poor, poor books. Many a trip was taken from the flat into the basement to line the least favourite ones (more guilt) along the shelves amidst much sneezing and throat-constricting [for we are the mites and we rule as one]. I have been tired and snappy and miserable and was even more tired and snappy and miserable by the end of it.

But see, there is desolation in chaos and clutter, too much of it. And by tidying up I achieve something more important than simple physical rest - a clear mind. Clean chakras. Good vibes. Call it what you like, my home will be more so after I’m done. And, since I believe in sending Life the right message, this is my bottle at sea, I need a new office, a fitting one, a space where studying and working can be an open joy, see how I’m working towards it, now please send a cheque, 1/3 of the Trinity beckons.

I am also telling Life there is space in mine for all the good things that it has to offer, so it chooses to.

There is a vivid tranquillity within me, at the core, at all times.