My Name Is Dustin

Pink

Pink is no longer a color, the way Pluto is no longer a planet.  I will correct people who say this.  They will be annoyed.  People have forgotten the importance of using words correctly.  It is something I struggle with.  It is my job.  I had never felt it’s importance until I spoke a language that was not my own.  People don’t know the difference between their, there and they’re.  I know the difference.  Let me start again.  

Pink is no longer a color.  I will continue to use the word because there is an established understanding.  It frequents our conversations more than Pluto does.  To tell someone it is not a color is a conversation point.  It gets people to think.  Sure, we have names for light blue and light green.  However, the modifier “light” serves us just fine.  I find it strange that “light red” has not been established.  At the very leaset, I think it would make a great band name.  One more time.

Pink is not a color.  Yet, we have the flesh inside of us that brings first and formost that word to describe it.  We don’t say it’s a collection of nerves and muscles.  We don’t say it’s the blood vessels coming to the surface of the membrane.  Describe your tongue.  It’s pink.  That’s what most people would say without reading this or any other prompting.  We don’t say it’s a muscle, pound for pound the strongest muscle in our bodies.  Again.

Pink is not a color.  It has been used as a way to describe femininity.  That is unfortunate because with few exceptions the pink nouns we think of are delicate flowers, soft sunrises, silk and lace.  With men, the color blue is associated.  We can think of mountains, the vast ocean, we can think of the sky above us and for some reason steel comes into the mix.  Again.

Pink is not a color.  Don’t tell Crayola.  It is a mixture of red and white.  It is the absence of all other colors.  When I say “Pink,” should I say it in a whisper?  Should I say it in a giggle? Pink is for little girls, gay men and artists.  Is that right?  There is no heft to pink.  There is strength to red.  It is passion. It is blood.  It is the hottest ember glowing in the fire.  It is a planet, big and empty, yet a speck of dust to the observers on this planet.  Once more.

Pink is not a color.  There is no room for it on the color spectrum, yet we all see it.  Here are people with no better things to do, telling us that something we have seen, something we can very easily visualize is no longer real.  How does that make you feel?  Does it carry the same emotions as the time when you were told, discovered that Santa wasn’t real?  No?  Then ask yourself why not?