Natural Blue

The Pantone Color of the Year for 2020, Classic Blue, is described on the Pantone website:

Instilling calm, confidence, and connection, this enduring blue hue highlights our desire for a dependable and stable foundation on which to build as we cross the threshold into a new era […] a shade reminiscent of the sky at dusk. "It's a color that anticipates what's going to happen next," said Laurie Pressman, the vice president of the Pantone Color Institute, which selects the Color of the Year.

The sky at dusk is undeniably beautiful, universal. Everyone can look up and see the same sky.

The first thing I thought of when I read about the selection of Classic Blue was the song “Natural Blue” by Julie Byrne. She sings:

When I first saw you
The sky, it was such a natural blue

Stars from a back porch
They're talkin' but I don't say much anymore
It's old news but if you're asking
Been a long time since I've been moved

But when I first saw you
That feeling, it came over me too
Natural blue

It’s a wonderful song, conveying a sense of wistful longing for someone from the past. Someone who invoked a feeling similar to seeing the sky at dusk.

I lived in the same place for 10 years and I often went for evening walks around the neighborhood. Sometimes listening to music, sometimes talking to one of my best friends on the phone. Sometimes with no sound at all. I’d watch the sun go down, the sky grow darker and darker, and sometimes I’d see the moon emerging bright and clear. It was nearly impossible to see stars with all the light pollution around.

Now, I’ve moved and I don’t go for walks anymore. I miss those times at twilight, with the view of the Air Force Memorial stabbing the sky.

I also think of the classic jazz album, Kind of Blue, by legend Miles Davis. Maybe you know it. If you don’t, stop reading this and go find it and listen to it. In part, it reminds me of when my dad would put it on in the house when I was growing up. As I’ve written about before, he would often turn out the lights in the living room, lie down on the blue and white striped couch, and close his eyes. I knew better than to disturb him at those times.

The album also reminds me of sitting around a table with a bunch of talented musicians in Nashville while on spring break in college. More recently, I think about sitting in my house late at night, drinking wine, and not talking. Just listening to the music as it spun around on the record player. Glorious.

Music is color. Music is shape. Music is memory, but I also hear it differently each time I play it. Something new pops out of the layers. But I’m reminded of my favorite scene from the movie Playing by Heart. Joan, played by Angelina Jolie, says at the opening of the film that “talking about music is like dancing about architecture.” She goes on to say that talking about love is like dancing about architecture, but that it isn’t going to stop her from trying.

So, here I am trying to write about how a color makes me feel, how the sky makes me feel, how a piece of music makes me feel. It’s nearly impossible, but it’s not going to stop me from trying.