Misidentified
Living in Labels
Have you heard of simultaneous contrast? It’s my favorite thing about art. It’s a phenomenon where the perception of a color is changed by the colors surrounding it.
I had a project in art school once in honor of simultaneous contrast. We painted our entire canvas a tan color. Then we had to create a finished painting over it, but leaving two spots of the original tan on opposite sides. The goal was to paint different colors around the tan spots to change their perception, so that eventually, one tan spot looked orange, and the other, blue.
Yes, it’s as hard as it sounds. I never got to finish that painting.
But the concept has always stuck with me—simultaneous contrast. Colors changing in new environments. I guess I like the idea of fluidity. That you can grow up your whole life with someone telling you you’re orange, and in a different environment, you suddenly look blue.
I think I live my life in simultaneous contrast. I’ve been put up against all sorts of people. They tell me I’m black and blue and green and yellow. I’ve been told I’m every shade under the sun. If they’re blue then I’m orange, if they’re red then I’m green—the key here being that whatever color I appear to be, is the opposite of theirs. Stark, simultaneous contrast, sticking out like a sore thumb.
I like being alone. When I’m alone I know what color I am. Or rather, colors.
But when I walk out the door it’s not so clear anymore. Suddenly I’m an entire collection of versions and names and stories in the eyes of different people.
“You’re red”, one says. I open and close my mouth like a fish guzzling water. Yes, I think. But also no. I’m not, but I am. I struggle to find words.
They’re technically right. The problem here isn’t that I’m not red. It’s that I’m also blue. And green. And purple. And yellow.
Why does everyone only see one color at once?
I’ve been a million different things. I’ve been called a million different names. If you write out the list, I’ve been perceived as all shapes and sizes—all colors of the rainbow. I guess that’s the magic of simultaneous contrast.
But for once, I wish I could stand next to a person that saw all my colors the way I see all my colors. Everything everywhere all at once. A rainbow standing next to a rainbow.
-heather ♡
