color trauma, was History Resources?
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In a message dated 9/29/03 3:14:57 AM, amycats2@... writes:
<< Ma said, No, Laura could only wear pink because her hair was brown and
Mary had to wear blue because her hair was blond. What was THAT all about? As
a
child, I always wondered "What's the big deal? Why can't she wear whatever
color she wants?" >>
There were just too many rules in those days.
In my own family, when we took my cousins in, there were two girls in (I'll
pick a year at random, but the pattern continued) fifth grade, and two in
second. Our cousins were older, but having started school in Texas with fall
birthdays, they were a year "behind" New Mexico starting years.
I wonder if that's considered in comparing test scores? The Texas kids were
on average older in the same grade than the New Mexico kids who started
"early."
With a summer birthday I was the same in either state.
Anyway, my mom would get the same dress in two colors. We ended up dressed
like friggin' TWINS and weren't even sisters. Sadistic or lazy, hard to say.
Both, to a degree.
And for a while we had "colors," so that if some plastic toy had been bought,
pink was my sister's, blue was Nadine's, red was Nada's and green or black
would be mine. Then we could tell our stuff apart.
WELL duh. I find that even though I can't tell my boys' stuff apart, THEY
can. I ask them.
My mom had elaborate schemes to keep us from fighting over things.
At Christmas she got us the same things. Four etch-a-sketches. Four stuffed
monkeys with bananas. She would mark them with our colors in a small
corner, or with thread. Socks were marked with a stitch of "our color."
Perhaps like an orphanage, or like we used to have rats, in psych lab, with
identifying stripes on their tales put on with magic marker.
I used to usher for the Santa Fe opera, as a teen. We wore expensive,
access-controlled long hand-woven ponchos from Ortega's in Chimayo. Most were
striped in browns and oranges, but a very few were blue.
The blue ones were pretty, but every single night, someone who had chosen
blue ended up with the least attractive leftover brown because of this:
The organizer's daughter had red, strawberry blond hair, and she and her
mother said it ONLY looked good with the blue, so every week as the rest of us
rushed for the prettiest colors, Karen yawned and hung out by the door, sauntered
over and claimed the blue one she wanted when she felt like it.
So I DO understand the ribbon colors thing, from personal experience, two
ways.
If they had the same color ribbons, the mom might have had to settle fights
about whose were whose.
Oh!!! And it's worse. There were traditional "rules" about what color
"clashed" with another. My mom refused us wearing green and blue together "because
they clash."
No consideration of how those particular two particular shades looked
together, just "take it off, it clashes."
Same with pink and red. "They clash."
My mom wasn't an artist at all. She just feared to break any of the
near-magic-powered mysterious unfounded "rules" which had crept up inside her from
every direction.
No fish with milk. You might die.
Sandra
<< Ma said, No, Laura could only wear pink because her hair was brown and
Mary had to wear blue because her hair was blond. What was THAT all about? As
a
child, I always wondered "What's the big deal? Why can't she wear whatever
color she wants?" >>
There were just too many rules in those days.
In my own family, when we took my cousins in, there were two girls in (I'll
pick a year at random, but the pattern continued) fifth grade, and two in
second. Our cousins were older, but having started school in Texas with fall
birthdays, they were a year "behind" New Mexico starting years.
I wonder if that's considered in comparing test scores? The Texas kids were
on average older in the same grade than the New Mexico kids who started
"early."
With a summer birthday I was the same in either state.
Anyway, my mom would get the same dress in two colors. We ended up dressed
like friggin' TWINS and weren't even sisters. Sadistic or lazy, hard to say.
Both, to a degree.
And for a while we had "colors," so that if some plastic toy had been bought,
pink was my sister's, blue was Nadine's, red was Nada's and green or black
would be mine. Then we could tell our stuff apart.
WELL duh. I find that even though I can't tell my boys' stuff apart, THEY
can. I ask them.
My mom had elaborate schemes to keep us from fighting over things.
At Christmas she got us the same things. Four etch-a-sketches. Four stuffed
monkeys with bananas. She would mark them with our colors in a small
corner, or with thread. Socks were marked with a stitch of "our color."
Perhaps like an orphanage, or like we used to have rats, in psych lab, with
identifying stripes on their tales put on with magic marker.
I used to usher for the Santa Fe opera, as a teen. We wore expensive,
access-controlled long hand-woven ponchos from Ortega's in Chimayo. Most were
striped in browns and oranges, but a very few were blue.
The blue ones were pretty, but every single night, someone who had chosen
blue ended up with the least attractive leftover brown because of this:
The organizer's daughter had red, strawberry blond hair, and she and her
mother said it ONLY looked good with the blue, so every week as the rest of us
rushed for the prettiest colors, Karen yawned and hung out by the door, sauntered
over and claimed the blue one she wanted when she felt like it.
So I DO understand the ribbon colors thing, from personal experience, two
ways.
If they had the same color ribbons, the mom might have had to settle fights
about whose were whose.
Oh!!! And it's worse. There were traditional "rules" about what color
"clashed" with another. My mom refused us wearing green and blue together "because
they clash."
No consideration of how those particular two particular shades looked
together, just "take it off, it clashes."
Same with pink and red. "They clash."
My mom wasn't an artist at all. She just feared to break any of the
near-magic-powered mysterious unfounded "rules" which had crept up inside her from
every direction.
No fish with milk. You might die.
Sandra
Tia Leschke
> Oh!!! And it's worse. There were traditional "rules" about what color"because
> "clashed" with another. My mom refused us wearing green and blue together
> they clash."That's one I always thought particularly stupid. So where the forest meets
the sky is ugly? (green forest - blue sky)
> No consideration of how those particular two particular shades lookedLike in a sunset. <g>
> together, just "take it off, it clashes."
>
> Same with pink and red. "They clash."
Tia
leschke@...
"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where
there is no path and leave a trail."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
[email protected]
In a message dated 9/29/03 2:44:28 PM, leschke@... writes:
<<
That's one I always thought particularly stupid. So where the forest meets
the sky is ugly? (green forest - blue sky) >>
Or blue flowers with green leaves.
Or water in lakes.
I think green and blue are Great together. In fact today I bought some
cotton tennis shoes and plan to dip one end in blue dye and then later the other
end in green so where they meet they'll be halfy-half. I have lots of blue and
green t-shirts. (Some are blue, and some are green, and white shoes will just
be brown and black too soon.)
Sandra
<<
That's one I always thought particularly stupid. So where the forest meets
the sky is ugly? (green forest - blue sky) >>
Or blue flowers with green leaves.
Or water in lakes.
I think green and blue are Great together. In fact today I bought some
cotton tennis shoes and plan to dip one end in blue dye and then later the other
end in green so where they meet they'll be halfy-half. I have lots of blue and
green t-shirts. (Some are blue, and some are green, and white shoes will just
be brown and black too soon.)
Sandra