Beholding (Cyan)

I think the first computer in my home growing up was a Commodore VIC-20. Even though my parents worked for IBM, I believe this came before the IBM PC-XT. The VIC-20 was something special because it had ports not only for cartridge software (and games!) but also for a joystick (games!) and it could connect to a regular television. It had 3.5 KB of RAM (by way of comparison, the laptop I am writing on has 32 GB of RAM - which works out to about 950 million percent more) and no hard drive. But it could display 16 (16!!!) colors - not just the green text on a black background like many other computers of the time. One of those 16 colors was one that I had never heard of before that computer.

Cyan

There were all the other usual colors - yellow, blue, green, orange, red, white, black, purple, and “light” variations of each, but then there was…

Cyan

Basically, it was like a light blue, but officially it sits between blue and green in the visible spectrum. So it isn’t really light blue but neither is it greenish. It’s…

Cyan

This week brought some unique beholdings as some were more blue, some a bit more green but maybe if they are averaged out, they’d be…cyan.

Before jumping into the photos, there were a few other points from this week around the color - a beautiful sight I see most every day, a beautiful memory, and a beautiful poem.

The sight. No photo - I am not sure my wife would want a close-up of her eyes online, but she has light blue-green (cyan-adjacent) eyes. That color I learned from a machine decades ago is with me each day.

The memory. This photo is from three years ago — a solo day at the end of a week-long church trip, circling the Great Blue Hole off the coast of Belize. The hole itself is a deep, almost ink-dark blue. The water ringing it…cyan.

The poem - “Blue” by Laura Villareal from the June 8 episode of The Slowdown podcast. It dropped in my feed just as I was about to begin my cyan week and it paints several shades of blue, including one that sounds suspiciously like…cyan.

There is quite an assortment of photos below but one surprised me. On Monday, Winton Lake had flooded again and the benches were just above the waterline. In the photo, the bench isn’t moving, but the water is stirring all around it and reflecting the mottled clouds in the cyan sky. It was unique to see in person, but the photo that resulted…a sight to behold.

That one, and the rest, are below.

Wednesday - Walking the labyrinth near my house and as I walked back to the sidewalk...there's the statue of Mary...

Thursday - The sliver of the moon against the early blue-grey sky just starting to lighten

Thursday 2 - This felt a bit like the Trans-pride flag flying in the sky

Friday - The remains of a robin egg on the path. Such a stunning color especially against the black asphalt

Saturday - It was a cool enough morning to wear long sleeves so it was appropriate to bust out the cyan-ish shirt I got that day three years ago on Ambergris Caye

Sunday - a bit of an unusual one. Scout and I were walking the day after a 2 day kids fest at the lake and there were a bunch of park employees cleaning up afterwards. I realized how each of them were wearing cyan colored gloves as they cleaned up. So this is a photo that simply is there to thank them for their work of re-beautifying the park. (And yes I did pick up and recycle this bottle)

Monday - the photo I described above

Tuesday - Another cyan sight I see every day. The cyan on Scout's collar

And then some bonus Scout photos…(Sorry Scout, I can’t do anything about how Substack cropped the middle photo - note the cyan leash too!)

How did you experience cyan this week?

And the last color week begins today…a close cousin of cyan… BLUE!

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

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