growing in the goo

I've always thought that colors just functioned as a way to please the eye - and sometimes they work to soothe (sage) or to excite (bright red). That they're cool and all, but they don't tap into our subconscious, or really mean anything in the grand scheme of things.

I love purple. Not pastel (yuck), but a deep, eggplanty plummy purple. I have two sweaters in that color, one belt and a skirt (thanks to Min!), and my winter coat is that color. It just makes me happy. In fact, the chair I'm sitting on is draped in a duvet that is that color. There are several shades of awesomeness, but it has to be deep to capture my heart.

(Ugly sweater, yes. But the color is near-perfect.)


Professing my love of the color to my mom (I pretty much only discuss scintillating topics on the phone), she reminded me that I went through a phase at the age of four when I would wear nothing but purple. What a delightful child. And it's noteworthy that I have the same preference 19 years later.

At any rate - I've noticed an interesting thing about color, other than my lifelong preference of the purp.

In the mornings, after my alarm goes off, oh, three times, I stumble to my closet and pick out my "underthings."

I then take a shower, and think of which outfit I should wear. I then get dressed, generally rummaging around and having stacks of clothes fall on my head, swearing, ironing, abandoning outfits in favor of other ones.

Later in the day I'll realize, more often than not, that my "underthings" match my outfit. And not in an abstract "pink kinda goes with blue!" way, but in a "Wow. I'm wearing orange underwear and an orange shirt."

That particular orange day was the one that made it all click. It was one of those days that I had nothing to wear, nothing looked good on me, and I was running super late. I had tried on three or four shirts, then settled on the orange in semi-despair, as the thing that looked the least worst on me.

And once I started noticing it, I noticed that it happened a lot. And I wasn't trying to match in the morning - regardless of my intense thinking, I generally end up in front of my closet clueless as to what I'm going to throw on.

And for all of you people that regularly sport dark blues, blacks, and browns, don't poo-poo this. I love color. I wear blues, greens, oranges, pinks, yellows, reds, purple, etc. The chances of matching colors decrease with the number of colors one wears.

So, do I really choose the color? Or does the color choose me? Does it not really matter what I want to wear? Am I just going to end up wearing a certain color, independent of what I think I'm thinking?

This brings up interesting ideas of predeterminism and fate... Is it possible for me to believe in free will, but also believe that matching my underthings and clothes points to predeterminism?

Does each day already have a predetermined color that goes with it? If so, what do those colors mean?