R E F L E C T I O N 05

AT TA I N I N G A
M Y C O L O R : A B R E I F
Cara Chenoweth
It seems I know everybodys color but my own.
Kassi, who sits across from me, is a muted red. It almost
feels like shes shouting it from the rooftops. Im still
here.. Kayla is a forest green. The feeling you get when
youre in a forest and the sunlight filters through the leaves.
Its the kind of color that listens to you with concerned
eyes the color of the earth it grew from. Ms. Osman is a
navy blue. Sometimes when I get too close I can feel the
splotches of silver like shes carrying the soul of her sister
entwined with her own. Blake is yellow. Its there, hidden
under waves of grays and blacks. Sometimes I wonder if
hes trying to smother his color in mourning.
A memoir is supposed to be about yourself. What
do you do when your identity is made up of others? I tell
other peoples stories in hope of finding my own.
Photo by Shareef Achekzai
M E M O I R
The boy was a dark green. He was in love with
me. I know this because every time I was with him I
could feel his color trying to merge with mine, marking
me as his own. His love was given freely without thought
of consequences. In that way I admire him. Sometimes I
feel sorry that I could never love him. I was not created
to love boys like him. I was made to love girls and boys
who love me so intensely I cant do anything but leave. I
was made to love people who want to be fixed by me. But
Im not my father. I dont have his mechanical hands.
There was only one girl who didnt want me to
repair her broken soul. She would rather rip me apart so
we could match. She made me want to claw and pry my
color off my body to become one with hers. It was never
enough. I was never enough. I could have become the
exact replica of her almost black green, and she would
claim she wanted a contrasting color. I loved her any-
ways. I loved the feeling of having an identity. I was no
longer floating, I was hers. I used to think what we had
was passion. Our arguments werent professions of love,
S E N S E O F
B E L O N G I N G :
A N U P H I L L
B AT T L E
M o v i n g a ro u n d s o m u c h d e n i e d m e
a sense of community as a child
- n o w s u r ro u n d e d b y s o m e t h i n g
which claims so much commu-
n i t y t o o f f e r, h a v e I t r u l y a s -
similated after five years? Or is
belonging going to be a life long
battle for me?
LIZZY ELKINS
As spirit week rolls around for Sadie
Hawkins, Homecoming, or Prom every year, there
seems to be a day dedicated to college wear. As
students mull through the hallways, the prevalence
of Oregon State and University of Oregon spirit wear
is overwhelming. It seems that innately, each stu-
dent knows which team/side they belong to, theyve
known it since they were little. In others schools and
other states, its the same. Walking in the halls of a
Maryland high school, youll see students proudly
representing the Ravens, the Steelers, the Yankees,
any team with which they align themselves.
In Oregon specifically, seeing so much
orange and black and yellow and green causes me to
self-reflect. A lot of these students have known since

they were just warning signs. Sometimes it was good. I
think we were always destined to be friends. She told
What does it me she couldnt live without me. I thought I couldnt live
without her. It took me too long to realize I wasnt living
mean when with her in the first place. Where I lost a lover I gained a
lifelong friend.
your identity is made

The second girl was purple and gold. I didnt
love her. She tried to craft for me what the first girl failed

up of others? to do. Her dark purple tried to soothe my wounds even

The obvious answer would be that I take after my
parents. My father is a contractor with a mechanics heart.
Ever since he was young hes had a knack for taking things
apart and putting them back together in a way that never
seemed possible. Suddenly hes above you smiling, the
crows feet at the corners of his eyes crinkling. Fahrvergn-
gen, he says to me is the joy of driving. He doesnt
know that his pine tree green taught me the joy of life.
My mother works for the schools. She spends her
days teaching people how to form their Rs correctly. As a
speech pathologists daughter I grew up speaking perfectly,
but there is no way for someone to teach you how to speak
your mind. Her and my father create a harmony together.
His green is the earth, grounding her light blue. My sister
seems to fit perfectly between them, her wheat yellow
bringing harvest to the land. I often wonder what I am. I
dont feel part of their colorful land.
Am I the old woman across the street? Her baby
pink should inspire hope and youth, but thinking about it
makes pain shoot down my spine like the loss of a husband
of 50 years. But that pain is not my own. I have never felt
loss like that.
Maybe Im like the men and women who filter in
and out of the house down the street. Does my white also
reek of foggy pipes and pain in numbers? Do I too have
sunken eyes and bony fingers?
When did my neighborhood get so dark? I re-
member sunny days playing with the boy next door, our
shrieking laughter echoing through the giant pine tree that
guarded over us. Then one day he disappeared to the end
of the street with his mother and her new boyfriend while
his father tried to drink away the infidelity in the old house.
Now the tree in the yard is dying. Years passed and the boy
lives with his father far away, his mother gone and her boy-
friend a drunken corpse in the house at the end of the street.
It seems the boys mother had a love for men with broken
minds.
Sometimes Im afraid Im like the boys mother.
She was a steel gray. Unbreakable. It seems like she too
was only taught that love was to break or be broken. Did
something in her break and the only way she could fix it
was to transform her pain into someone elses?
though gold was still bleeding out of hers. I was never
taught to love tenderly. She was too good at forgiving and
I was too good at violence. In those 5 months, I became
the steel gray of the boys mother. She became just an-
other version of the boy, trying to mark and claim me as
hers. Even now, she still uses me to explain her jagged
tongue and sometimes I hate her for it. I never wanted to
be the cause of someones destruction.
The idea of being someones lover still makes
my hands tremble with the memory of a snarled Youre
mine. I dont think Im ready to be that vulnerable again.
I only feel safe when I am with a friend. Platonic love
cannot be all-consuming. Its only the soft blue of a girls
hand stroking the back of your head in comfort. Its the Photo courtesy of Zimbio
bright yellow of laughter and the foggy white of shared
birth. Their families identify strongly and rep each
sadness.
team with heart and passion.
For years my identity and color has been made
Are you a Duck?
up of whatever people desired of me. The girls Ive dated,
Or are you a Beaver?
who wanted me to as a pretty doll for their collection. In
To this I have no response. I moved here
a world built of expectations, I find my true color in defy-
when I was twelve, as I discussed on page twos
ing the laws of the world. I dont have to trick people into
editorial. And before that, I moved to Maryland when
thinking theyre chasing the sun when Im only water
I was seven. And before that I moved to Arkansas
reflecting what they want to see.
when I was one. I have no sense of intrinsic team
I still dont know my color. I dont know if
spirit. Am I Beaver? Am I Duck? What am I? My
people even have colors. It seems redundant to label
brother goes to OSU, but I might be going to UO.
someone when theyre ever changing.
OSU has a nuclear reactor, but UO has an interna-
To Kassi; You are not just red. Sometimes you
tional studies program. Am I a Duck or Beaver? Am I
are a pale yellow. It reminds me of anxious, twisting
neither? What do I identify as, and what communities
hands and twitchy limbs.
do I associate myself with?
To Kayla; One day the story will be about you.
This isnt about my internal conflict over
Your green is a supportive, caring color. Soon youll be
whether I associate as a Duck or Beaver. It goes
able to be a blazing orange.
deeper than that. It correlates to and is representative
To Ms Osman; Tears are just love that has no-
of how I feel like I fit into the statewide and global
where left to go. Im sorry. Dont ever let go of the silver.
community. It increasingly seems like everyone has
To Blake; Despite being yellow, sometimes its
that innate, deep-rooted sense of what community
okay to be black. Let yourself feel in front of others. Its
they belong to in the world. It seems like each family
human.
has a place, that people know where they belong,
To myself; Its time to let go.
they know what they equate themselves to, whether
that be a sports group, a school, a political party, or a
religious group. Each OSU or UO logo I see bran-
dished confidently over someones chest reminds me
that I have A) yet to decide on a college and that I B)
dont know where I belong in the scheme of things.
CONTINUED ON PG09