Following a colour-driven curiosity trail

At this time of year, my thoughts turn yellow

It’s your 11th birthday and you are wearing the yellow hoodie I bought you two years ago. Organic cotton, soft to the touch. It’s taken until now for the threat of new to wear off. The sleeves creep up your arms, cuffs dancing as you spin on the spot. By spring you’ll have outgrown it. 

Yellow. Like your skin as you lie in the perspex box, tiny fist curled around my finger. Paper shades shielding your eyes from the UV light. Heel bloodied from the too big syringe. 

It’s the colour of the crop that closes in on our cottage, triggering asthma attacks every four years. We can’t get a dog because of my allergies. Instead I bring water snails and stick insects back from school, daydream about getting a Saint Bernard when I grow up. Beg for a boa constrictor. 

It’s Calli’s sun-catching hair.

The whin’s promise of spring.

The stretch of the washing line, bouncing with birds.

The colour of the car that signals a lucky day, according to my nephew in Madrid - amarillo. 

I am 12 and Granny is regaling the room from a polycotton throne. She’s ready to meet her maker, she announces, but she doesn’t think he’s ready for her. We all laugh and I swallow the need to ask why her face is yellow.