playing with mud

Obsession about color in my family began when my father’s second grade teacher informed his (painter) mom that little Louis had the wrong end of the stick because his trees had purple trunks and red leaves and everybody knows that trees have brown trunks and green leaves.

“Everything goes well with brown,” Oupa (grandpa) Louis always insisted, “all the flowers in the world look great with the soil they grow from.”

Brown

Add more yellow and I dream about the beautiful desert architecture of Islam.

Carved out in the soft belly of the Sahara, private courtyards merge with public streets through a wooden door. For the sake of surviving the harsh heat, cold and winds, this ancient design type formed by clusters of communal buildings and open shared circulation space still prevails today. I see the rhythm of harden creamlike mud columns casting shadows on her outfit as a hidden woman hovers past in rough raffia folds made from spun camelhair.

Add more pink and I remember the western facades of Tuscan terraces.

They beckon the dying golden rays to warm their earthy walls plastered centuries ago, still resisting gradual coups by ivy fingers crawling heavenward. Here proud Cabernets breathe with relief as corks in sandy shades lift out at sunset releasing the smell of copper brown soil handed down through generations.

Add more green and I return in my mind to the thorn tree bushveld of Africa.

Camouflaged conservationists observe carefully as enlarged shapes in a distance suspect their intrusion. Drenched in khaki, a rhinoceros emerges from the cool dripping ground. The look of thousands of touristy travelers who studied Meryl Streep’s costumes in Out of Africa but thought little about how hot that color gets in the Southern sun. In addition to this, dangerous tsetse flies get attracted to dark shades resembling mud bathed beasts.

Add more black and my mind gets stuck in clay soils.

Generated by weathered dolomite this persistent dark chocolate mud causes more than a migraine in any construction worker’s mind. As an active soil type this clay reacts dramatically to shifting water levels, snapping concrete footings to large buildings if not designed properly. When it gets wet it sticks to your boots, adding height with every step as you try to inspect the workmanship and drainage system. I sit sideways in my car, scraping off giant chunks of Dove’s dark promises onto the curb in Joseph Street.

Take away the life from brown and I am back in Dallas.

I think of the packaged Create your own grow kit sold for less than a dollar each. Fake soil dehydrated to consume less space on Target shelves―neatly cleanly cheap―for indoor use on my Swiss Towers window sill if my air-conditioning system allows these seeds to live.