naked notes

Speaking of the fact that everything is a projection of the mind . . . my friend Marcel who is Swiss came over for his weekly meeting with me.  He’s hired me to not exactly teach him English, but to discuss highly philosophical, political, and otherwise deep issues with him. We read books, articles, and journals on our own and then come together to discuss. He wants to be able to speak English with the best of us, to debate, to make and argue his point, and to do it with finesse.  What a fun job, no?

He comes over for the first time and sits down on the red and gold sofa. He looks around and is obviously finding something distasteful as he says with a sort of squinched-up look on his face, “It is clear that you love the color of brown.” I am baffled and I look around trying to find brown and cannot for the life of me. What is he seeing, what is he experiencing? I think, “it is very clear that Marcel is definitely color blind.”

He explains that most of my furniture is brown, except my antique metal bed which is painted a bright gold and decidedly does not have brown tones. He is calling my antique mahogany dining table, the wooden chairs that sit with it, my Aunt Jennie’s maple bedside tables and bookcase, “brown”.  I’m not mocking the Swiss, or Europeans in general; really, some of them are my best friends, but who calls wood furniture, brown?  Yes, okay, it is brown . . . but is that an adjective you’ve ever heard anyone use to describe his wood furniture?

Marcel doesn’t like brown furniture and I remembered then that his house in Bern was filled with white things, brightly colored painted furniture, and I recalled that any wood furniture was definitely pale tan.

Never mind that my living room and bedroom walls are painted a warm mustardy yellow (somehow it feels like an Italian yellow) and the kitchen is a bright sunny apricot.  In the bathroom I’ve tried to recreate my favorite color scheme: the one that appears when you look up at full-on summer trees with their deep green leaves against the crisp, cobalt blue sky. Never mind, Marcel.  All you can see is the color of furniture you don’t like, brown! What about the rest?

I am illustrating the idea that everyone’s experience of something is different. You are reading this and perhaps you are extremely irritated with this particular rant of mine (like I was irritated with Marcel). Or perhaps another reader is enjoying it immensely. Another finds it boring as usual. So who is right? Where is the actual Sara’s #13 Post to Naked Notes? The answer is there is no actual one. It doesn’t exist. Everything, every THING, every situation, every person, every blog is simply an experience you are having and it’s different (however slightly) from everyone else’s. It’s a projection of mind and that means if you want to, you can change it, mess with it, redirect it.  What good news! Now we just have to learn how to control (create?) our experiences (our minds).

And that brings me back to your walls. What color are they? Are they still white? Do you keep them white because you feel you might move out soon? Because it’s too much trouble to paint them a different color? Because it’s a rental and the landlord paints them white for free?

It’s one thing if you love white and many people do. It’s bright, clean and clear. I loved it too for 10 years and then one day I got it into my head to paint.

I’ll tell you all about it next week . . . .

Category: NY Organize

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