25. Color Bee

Our drive to school is a little slower this morning. One of the main roads is down to one lane. Our daughter asks how to spell color as she searches Spotify for the song she is looking for. Spelling is not my super power and its not her super power either. We discuss how, in our Anglo-American family, color is spelled two ways, color and colour. We finally turn off the busy road on to the quiet country lane that winds its way to our daughter’s school. A slender black ribbon of a road curving amongst green fields dotted with white sheep and flanked by sturdy English oaks. Our youngest gets to choose the music on our morning journeys. This morning she chooses a song about color. I instantly love this song, it makes my heart smile. I think how similar we are in our own quirky ways. Our youngest sees the world in a sea of colour. This song was created by a kindred spirit. She sings, What’s your color? I could be every color you like. When the song finishes I ask are youngest, is the song asking the right question? Our little but mighty nine year old answers, “she should be asking, what‘s my color?” This doesn’t surprise me. Our daughter is wise beyond her years in some ways. We asked her when she was six years old who God was, she answered without taking a breath, ” God isn’t a he or she, God is the voice inside of me.” Amen.

I think about our youngest. Her father is a scientist at Oxford. Her mother is a writer, who has been afforded the great luxury of the time and privacy to see the overlooked in the every day. She will grow up supported and connected in ways that earlier branches in our family tree were not. I wonder about girls. Girls that are growing up with less resources and connections. I wonder about little girls growing up in tougher situations. Where home isn’t a safe harbour in life’s storm. Girl’s whose parents don’t feel comfortable crossing the threshold of museums and feel intimidated in places like schools and doctor’s offices. I think about all the colours in the world, all the people. Who is missing from my version of the world?

The story I’ve told myself is women and girls have been shafted once again. Go to the hospital with a heart attack and your chances of survival are less if you’re a women. Strap your seatbelt on in a car and your chances of survival in an accident are less because the car wasn’t ever designed with you in mind. The self righteousness of injustice can be blinding. I begin to think who is missing from my story? The picture I compose of the world seems to be very white, very educated, very female. But what if its not? I worry about our girls, but now I’m beginning to think about all the other colors that are missing from my song. I don’t think it’s just girls that are mirroring others. I don’t think its just girls that are asking others what’s your color, so they can blend in and survive. There are plenty of souls moving around on this planet in places and lives just beyond my reach of understanding who are just like us. I want to see all the colours in places that are just beyond my imagination. I begin to wander how I’m going to do that. What’s your color? I wanna know.