I’ve really been missing my purple reading glasses. I bought them about a year ago, along with a purple wallet, a purple neck warmer, and a purple headband.
Some of this purple binge came from the poem, “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple…” by Jenny Joseph. Why wait until you’re old? Purple is the color I associate with creativity and a certain freedom to not care what people think.
Purple makes you feel like having fun.
I’d noticed this effect two years ago, when I bought some yoga toe socks that were purple. When I wore them, I’d laugh, and dance around showing off my toes.
But I’d lost these glasses somewhere in the rush of hospitals on Nov. 15. My brown reading glasses work fine, but I felt like I’d lost part of my spirit with the purple ones.
Today, Tom and I came back home for the first time since my aneurysm. The house looked normal, for the most part.
The two turkey burgers that I’d been cooking when the rupture flooded my head were in the refrigerator, where I’d asked Sara to put them. A pile of forgotten broccoli sat in the microwave, turned to mush.
After a long look, and a shudder, I tossed this food off the deck and into the woods.
I prepared to smudge the house – burning mugwort to purify it from any lingering evil spirits.
Then I saw them.
My purple glasses were on the kitchen floor, under the lip of the drawers next to the sink.
I often wear them on my head. They must have fallen off and gone skidding across the floor when laid down and collapsed.
Seeing them there, askew but intact, was a shock. It brought back those minutes of terror in a flash.
That I lost track of my purple glasses that way was a sign of how bad it was.
It’s like seeing your totaled car after the accident. The moment when you know what you walked away from.
I’m glad to have them back, intact.
Today’s penny is a 2014, for the year I bought the purple stuff.