COLORS OF NEPTUNE

CORAL — MY OLD TOWNHOUSE, ON THE PORCH

I try to balance bubbles on the tip of my pruny index finger before they float towards a different world or burst from the jagged wood.

I jump with all my might and stretch my arms towards the clouds. My mother’s laughter echoes through the dirty window that I rested my marinara-coated palms on just moments before. I can still see the smudge of red trail towards the baby blue curtains. My mother is dressed in a flowing floral blouse. She chews on a piece of her watermelon Trident bubblegum. Her favorite color is currently a vivid coral and banana yellow–they complement her like sunshine. Her hair hangs in a loose bun. She has an essence of summer and poppy days. Everyone who meets her always gushes about how beautiful she is. Seeing her through the lens of a perfect bubble makes her ethereal. Her fuzzy coral blouse radiated a soft, gentle glow. Her happiness becomes my stardust, and I’m enveloped in a flurry of bubbles. I see an iridescent world.

I don’t have great balance. I dropped out of gymnastics and ballet because of my terrible flexibility and clumsiness. It took me the entire hour to even climb onto the balance beam–not to mention all the tiny toes I stepped on while attempting pirouettes. Jumping on my deck is really no different.

After momentarily floating, I come crashing down on the uneven wooden planks and land on the sharp edges. Protruding shards dig into my skin. I’m surprised I don’t burst like a bubble.

On cue, my mother sprints out. Her coral sleeves wipe my tears away, and she brings a pair of holographic tweezers. Her flood of color distracts me from pain–I’m busy looking at the way rainbows reflect off of those tweezers.

Splinters hurt. A lot. And blood isn’t as delicious as spaghetti sauce– I don’t recommend it. But there’s nothing a dash of coral can’t heal.

GREEN — BUSCH GARDENS

My aunt puts her hand over my stomach as I shriek in utter agony. The wind howls mercilessly and carries the faint screams of children. I feel like spiders are crawling up my skin as I ascend slowly towards the peak. The sheer velocity of the daunting Sesame Street roller coaster thrusts me into a race that transcends perceptions of time and space. The green color scheme of the park blends with the concrete walkway and coalesces into a sickening brown.

My aunt cries from laughter while I wail uncontrollably. To make matters even better, my globs of snot are captured in high resolution by those sneaky roller coaster cameras.

When we descend the platform, my insides churn from leftover anxiety. Kids much younger than me sprint past to hop back in line. Their joyful cheers are taunting–maybe I was the only one who was deathly scared of the roller coaster.

Honestly, it’s probably one of the slowest roller coaster rides in existence, but I swear we were going at lightspeed. It’s always the drop that gets me. I dread the slow, grueling ascension, only to plunge towards the ground while the funnel cake in my stomach sloshes and goes on its own fun ride.

It’s impossible to be miserable in a haven that is dotted with artificial green leaf clovers and smells like food seasoned with sweat.

To console me, my uncle buys me one of those juicy turkey legs. I gnaw away with my peg lateral teeth. We decide to watch the nighttime festivities: streets are bedazzled with glowing animatronics and floats. The ringing echo of the screams from the roller coaster are replaced by enchanted oohs and ahs.

I don’t recommend going on the Sesame Street roller coaster at Busch Gardens. If you do, though, make sure to recover by watching the green light parade at the end of the day.

Splinters

TURQUOISE — MY OLD TOWNHOUSE, DINING ROOM

My 4th grade project is to create a solar system diorama. I have to collect jars of stardust and steal the sun from space. Luckily, my dad is a rocket scientist. Michael’s becomes our galaxy as we grab vials of glitter, packs of toothpicks, and bags of styrofoam spheres.

We build space on our dining room table. We paint each ball with globs of paint that he took out from the basement’s storage room. I squeeze out a dot of glittery red to make Jupiter’s beauty mark. Pluto is coated with a shimmering silver. Soon, all the spheres shift from a pristine white to inaccurately vibrant hues of the planets. Neptune gleams with a shimmering turquoise–that’s why it’s my favorite planet.

Beads of sweat collect at my dad’s forehead. The pointy ends of the toothpicks prick our fingers and hot glue burns our hands. Stains of black and daffodil yellow paint are smeared permanently on our old, gray carpet–a nice addition to the faint blue streaks from the last time I finger painted. The small cuts and minor scratches are evidence of our exhaustive work–correction: my dad’s exhaustive work. When I’m too tired, he takes the project into his own hands. He carefully manufactures each planet and star to make sure they each shine brightly on their own. He’s not usually the creative type, but he works with rockets. He has to love space.

I realize that small sprinkles of pain are signs of progress. The class is about to be stunned by our glitter bomb of a solar system. I stand back to gaze at the final product: the sun is a cadmium yellow, Mars a glistening copper. These are so unrealistic, but I like imagining that Neptune is the perfect shade of aquamarine. Planets are way more interesting when you think of them as globs of paint on a palette.

BLACK — APPROACHING NEPTUNE

Those cuts from my solar system project healed a long time ago. I can hardly remember the itchy, dry scabs from falling on my deck. I’ve also forgotten about the way my stomach curdled during the Sesame Street ride.

The splinters I suffer from now will take longer to heal because they’re invisible. I’m no longer led by the hues of childhood. Rather, I’m stranded in an inky abyss, solar systems away from my family. The one I made with my dad exists lightyears away. An entire galaxy rests between us. I currently live on Neptune, but it doesn’t have the same turquoise glint I imagined. When did the colors become so muted–like a washed out blue from a blanket thrown in the washing machine too many times. A stretch of gray meets the dreary sky–voices are muffled and distant, ringing like a faraway dream, a fading memory. I don’t remember growing up.

My mother used to care for all my scratches. Like a sun ray’s kiss, her warmth washed away impending streaks of bleak gray. A bright Rudolph-themed band-aid would be plastered fashionably over the scabs I tore open. A warm glass of creamcolored oatmilk would catch my salty tears. Now, time doesn’t stop just because of my pain. There’s no one who can color in my sore spots with a magic pencil.

This week, I cried alone in my new dorm. The rainbow galaxy painting I made at home hangs cheerfully on a dirtied white wall, stained from the previous student. My tie-dye narwhal rests gently upon my new pastel pink sheets. I bury my face in my pillows to hide my swollen eyes from my new roommate. I cry until the red drains from my cheeks. I am ashen. When I touch my skin, I imagine dust coating my fingers. Colors could no longer paint over scars. They are too deep: no matter how much paint I coated on top, you’d see the crevices.

It’s as if someone tore off the Rudolph bandaid before I could heal. Someone took a black Sharpie and scribbled violently over the life I began to take for granted. Galaxies used to be wondrous. Now, they just scream distance, and the only thing that reverberates is silence. The splinters I received from my childhood manifested into a nightmare: an endless roller coaster of vertical drops and seats made out of toothpicks.

RAINBOW — NEPTUNE

There’s a point on the rollercoaster where I see the entire galaxy stretch beyond me. Crumbs of styrofoam have become stars, the bubbles are now tiny comets. I forget that I’m lost in space–for a moment, I imagine my mother’s gum, the lights of the nearby carousel, or my father’s steady hand painting. My family looks like a glowing orb that I can hardly make out but still feel their presence. My finger begins to sting from the memory of physical splinters, and it longs for some sort of pinch to remind me how to feel colors. The galaxies twinkle with a periwinkle glint.

My roller coaster treks towards them before whisking me around again. I feel a little distant–it’s weird to acknowledge that going home is just a visit, just another turn the ride takes before its next big drop. The roller coaster begins to accelerate towards lightspeed. Before I know it, I return to my home on Neptune.

Sometimes, the ascension is the worst part. Counting down the days until I moved out was more painful than the move itself. I used to romanticize the flight to space–the hope of reaching the stars or, if I looked hard enough, the sight of a distant planet. I figured I could create my own home the same way I created those styrofoam planets with my father: with a dash of glitter and inconsequential paint that shamelessly stained the carpet. Now, every step feels intentional. Colors are no longer so carefree. They don’t dance around like flowing watercolors. Instead, jet black seeps into my wounds and paints a shadow–it creates dimensionality.

Rainbows possess every color imaginable and unimaginable. Shards of different shades piece together a glass portrait–a delicate but beautiful image constructed out of each memory I made in a different lifetime.

If I could erase everything and repaint my journey, would I choose to ride on this roller coaster to Neptune? Would I exchange physical pain for starry scars? Would I choose to jump towards floating dreams even with the fear that they’ll burst?

When I created the solar system with my father, the turquoise glitter was my favorite. It wasn’t only turquoise, though. There were iridescent specks that glistened like pixie dust.

Today, as I finally descend the roller coaster and place my foot on the surface of Neptune, I’m welcomed by new friends I can now call family. The doors of my favorite poke restaurant swing open widely and engulf me in its vibrant orange walls and metal tables. A mini metropolis flashes with dazzling opportunities and magic flickers in every nook and cranny. The waft of Neptune’s best bakery brings back memories of home, and the tsunami of colorful aromas and sights make me want to curl up in my mother’s pink bed sheets. Only now, my longing for home is more of a beautiful reminder that “home” still exists across the galaxy.

When I look towards the stars, I remember the lightyears I’ve traveled to discover new shades to paint with. Perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned is that black keeps the happy yellows and bubblegum pinks from getting too muddy.

Finally, I’m seeing how all the colors–the peachy coral, the neon green, the pure turquoise, and, most importantly, the deep, black gashes running across the icy ground–coexist on a planet once uninhabitable.