The Weight of Indigo

We build walls to keep the world out, or perhaps to keep ourselves in. In the north, we use stone and timber, heavy things that hold the heat of a short summer against the long, encroaching frost. But there are places where the walls themselves are a prayer, painted in the color of the deep sky just before the stars emerge. It is a strange comfort, to live inside a shade that mimics the infinite. We walk through narrow passages, our shoulders brushing against the history of others, never truly knowing who stood there before us. We are all just passing through the blue, leaving our own thin layers of dust on the stone. Is it the color that protects the home, or is it the silence we bring inside with us? When the light fails and the shadows lengthen, does the house remember the hands that painted it, or does it simply wait for the morning to return?

Sanjay Shrivastava has captured this quiet endurance in his image titled Brahmpuri Blues. It reminds me that even in the heat of the desert, there is a coolness to be found in the shadows. Does the blue feel as heavy to you as it does to me?