The Colors We Carry

Life in words

The Colors We Carry

 -“Sometimes, the colors we see are the feelings we carry.”

-Prasantiram

Have you ever noticed how the weather can change your mood?

Some mornings, you wake up to a bright blue sky and somehow everything feels a little lighter. You have more energy, you feel like getting things done, maybe even stepping outside for a while.

And then there are those grey, cloudy days.

Nothing particular has happened. Your life is exactly the same as it was yesterday. Yet somehow, you feel quieter. You want another cup of coffee. You want to stay in bed a little longer. comforting yourself. Your mind starts wandering.

It makes me wonder — does the weather really change our mood? Or does our mood change the way we see the weather?

I remember one such grey afternoon from years ago, sitting by a window with nothing particular wrong in my life, and yet feeling a stillness I couldn’t explain. Looking back now, I don’t think it was the sky I was reacting to. I think the sky simply gave a shape to something that was already there.

That is the strange thing about colors.

We are surrounded by them all day — a red flower, a green tree, the soft blue of a morning sky, the golden light of afternoon, the pink and orange of a sunset, the deep violet that slowly takes over the evening.

And sometimes the sky seems to have a mind of its own.

One evening it may be painted in shades of gold and orange. Another day, soft pink melts into lavender and blue. Sometimes the clouds catch the last bit of sunlight and the whole sky looks as though someone has opened a box of colors and sprinkled them across the horizon.

A little gold here.

A touch of pink there.

Lavender melting into blue.

A pixie-dust sky.

The kind that makes you stop whatever you are doing and simply look.

And then there are skies that feel almost magical — like the aurora, with ribbons of green, purple, pink and blue moving across the darkness. We may not remember every ordinary sky we have seen, but somehow we remember the ones that made us pause. They become more than beautiful pictures. They become delightful memories, feelings, and moments we carry with us.

Perhaps that is what colors do.

Our eyes take them in like little cameras, capturing everything without asking why.

But a camera only stores the picture.

The mind is the one that decides what it means.

Blue might feel peaceful to one person and lonely to another. Yellow may bring warmth and happiness to someone, while the same color may feel restless to someone else. Green can remind us of nature, freshness and new beginnings. Red can bring excitement, love and energy — or anger and warning.

There is no single meaning for a color.

The color is outside. The meaning happens inside.

A particular shade of blue may remind us of a childhood summer. A golden sky may take us back to a journey. Pink clouds may remind us of someone we love. Even the soft grey of a rainy afternoon can hold a memory that is strangely comforting.

A particular color, song, or rainy afternoon can suddenly pull us back into a memory we hadn’t thought of in years. And in that moment, we are not really reacting to what is in front of us.

We are reacting to what it reminds us of.

That is where imagination quietly does its work.

We see something for a second, but the mind keeps going long after the image is gone — adding memory, feeling, and sometimes even stories that were never really there to begin with.

Perhaps that is why two people can stand in the same place, look at the same sky, and walk away holding two completely different feelings.

We don’t just see the world with our eyes.We see it with everything we have lived through.

And so, without ever quite realizing it, each of us is carrying around our own private set of colors.

Some are bright….Some are soft.

Some belong to old memories we didn’t choose to keep.

And some — quiet, half-formed, still waiting — are colors we haven’t learned to see yet.

But there is something else about weather that has been making me think lately.

We often say, “What gloomy weather. It’s so depressing.”

Yet when a real storm arrives — when the sky becomes dark, the wind becomes wild, thunder fills the air, or rain comes pouring down — we understand something very clearly:

There is nothing I can do about the weather.

So we close the windows.

We stay inside.We wait..

We don’t stand outside arguing with the rain.

We don’t ask the thunder why it is so loud.

We don’t blame the clouds for covering the sun.

We simply let the storm be a storm.

And yet, when the storm is inside us, we often do the opposite.

We fight it.We question it.

We try to understand every cloud, explain every feeling, and force ourselves to become bright and sunny again.

Maybe we could learn something from the sky.

There can be storms inside us even when everything looks calm from the outside. There can be thunder in our thoughts while our face looks perfectly peaceful. There can be grey days in our minds that nobody else can see.

And perhaps that doesn’t always mean something is wrong.

Maybe some inner weather is simply meant to pass through us.

Acceptance doesn’t mean giving up. It doesn’t mean liking the storm. It simply means allowing ourselves to say, This is what I am feeling today. I don’t have to fight it.

The next time the sky changes and something in you shifts with it, it might be worth pausing to ask:

Is the world showing me something new, or am I only just now noticing what was already there?

Maybe the answer doesn’t always matter.

Maybe sometimes it is enough to notice.

To let the color speak.

To let the feeling exist.

And to remember that even the darkest sky is still part of the same sky.

Just as the sky doesn’t remain the same, neither do we.

The clouds move.
The light changes.
The colors shift.
And so do we.

Maybe peace is not having a mind without clouds. Maybe it is knowing that clouds can gather without becoming the whole sky.

So the next time you find yourself looking at a grey sky, a golden sunset, or a pixie-dust evening, pause for a moment.

Notice what you feel.

Maybe the sky is not changing your mood at all.

Maybe it is simply giving you a color for something you were already carrying.

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