The Color of People’s Souls

The other day, I was run over by the imagination of my seven-year-old goddaughter. Children have this gift of seeing the world in a completely different way: without malice, without evil. And that day was just one more irrefutable piece of evidence of it.

She asked me to tell her a little story so she could later make a “beautiful drawing just for you, Tita!” And since I’m not exactly the most creative storyteller (what can I do?) and I didn’t want to tell something silly or pointless (it’s not every day I get the chance to teach something meaningful to a child and leave a tiny legacy in the world—even if through someone else’s kids), I decided to borrow one of the most well-known Christian passages: the Good Samaritan.

I started narrating about the man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, who was ambushed by robbers, beaten, and left half-dead by the roadside. A priest passed by, and so did a Levite, but neither helped him. Only later came a Samaritan—and it was he who stopped, cared for the man’s wounds, and took him to an inn.

— “That’s so nice, Tita. That’s why he’s the Good Samaritan, because he’s good, right?”

— “Exactly,” I said, proud of passing on the lesson.

She began to draw what she had understood from the story. When she was almost done, something caught my attention: there was a man lying on the ground (the half-dead one, I assumed), and another by his side (the Samaritan), painted in blue.

— “Blue?” I asked.

My mother is white, my father is brown, and my brother likes to say the mix of the two turned him into a delicious salted caramel. My sister is tan. My nephew sometimes looks a little grubby. But I had never seen anyone blue.

Intrigued by such a nonconventional choice, I asked:

— “But your little guy is blue, princess. Is he sick?”

— “No, Tita. His soul is blue.”

— “His soul? But… why blue?”

— “Oh, it’s just like Jesus’ clothes in that painting, remember? He was wearing blue. And Jesus is good. And that man in the drawing was good too, because he did charity. So his soul is blue as well.”

— “Do you think every good person has a blue soul?”

— “Yes. But it’s light blue, like Jesus’. Dark blue isn’t a good thing.”

— “It isn’t?”

— “No. Because dark blue is when you’re hiding something because you did something wrong. Then it casts shadows, and everything turns dark.”

Wow, I thought.

That statement instantly sparked my curiosity, and I decided to investigate further:

— “And my soul… what color is it?”

She looked at me… looked at the drawing… back at me again, and finally answered with conviction:

— “Orange, Tita.”

— “Orange? Why?”

— “Because orange is like… the sun,” she said, pointing at her drawing. “Have you ever seen a sad sun? The sun is always smiling… and it has a big mouth with lots of teeth. Just like you! So your soul must be orange, like the sun.”

I was so intrigued that, the next day at work, I threw the question on the table during coffee: what color is people’s soul?

Up until then, I only knew the conventional meanings: red for love, black for mourning, white for peace. But my poetic, child-souled adult self began to wonder if I had been wrong all my life. More than me, my colleagues got wildly excited. The conversation came alive, filled with creative ideas that had never crossed my mind—and suddenly made perfect sense.

I was surprised when I mentioned my thought about black and got a serious rebuttal.

— “Black reminds me of friendship.”

Friendship? Such a warm feeling tied to such a somber color? To me, black was nothingness, emptiness. Like when you’re in a dark room, open your eyes, and can’t see a thing. Fear.

— “Well, yes. But when you’re someone’s friend, you trust them even in the dark. And dark reminds me of black.”

Hmm… I didn’t even dare to argue. I simply updated my Jurassic concept of colors. The conversation went on, and I made amazing discoveries.

I discovered that brown is the color of all grandmothers’ souls. Like when you step into their homes and the floor hugs you, saying: “Go ahead, step all you want, I’ll hold you.” A color that seems heavy but smells like coffee—just like my grandma.

I discovered that white is the soul of the brave. Because white is the color of the breath before the first step. It’s the silence that screams: now go.

I never thought the theme would blossom into such beauty. It was shocking to realize how something so ordinary could spark meanings that had never occurred to me.

My sister has been kind of green lately, poor thing. She’s sick. Maybe it’s from all the veggie soup my mom forces her to eat to get better (as if I ever needed an excuse to devour a whole pot of soup by myself).

At lunchtime, my dad was gray (like the sky when it can’t decide whether to rain or let the sun out). He was on his way to see a client and give them a quote, looking more worried than usual.

Patrícia has been yellow (the same color you turn when you’re about to tell a secret and laugh halfway through, you know?). She’s in love! And the best part is her boyfriend’s looking kind of yellow too.

Speaking of which… there isn’t anyone yellow for me.

I’m purple with envy!

I wrote this chronicle back around 2012 (the exact date got lost somewhere in time, along with a few email passwords). This isn’t the 100% original version, but I’m glad to see that the same wonder I had for certain things back then still keeps shining—bright and colorful—in my soul today.