Photo from Wikimedia Commons.
This is part one of our series “Writer’s Palette,” where writers express what a specific color means to them. This piece by Haley Grindle is inspired by the color orange.
Orange is rugged and musky. It is the color of sunsets on the beach. It is late summer and road trips, packed into the backseat of an old van. It is vintage cars Halloween and seventies style clothing. It is dead leaves in the season of my sister’s name, the smell of bitter coffee and thrift stores.
Orange is deep amber and pumpkin pie, cinnamon and caramel apples. It is treasure maps and sand castles and citrus; turtlenecks and leather seats, campfires and the summer after high school.
It is unclean, scratched, faded, dented, stained and left out too long in the afternoon sun. It is rusted and cutely out of style. It is old fashioned but full of charm.