When you search for #minimalism on social media, your screen will be flooded with monochrome images, mostly in whites or beiges. At the beginning of my minimalist journey, I just didn’t understand. Why can’t the few things that you possess be of strong, vibrant colors? Why do kids’ rooms have to be deprived of them so much that even the toy rainbow seems washed out and faded?
Now, I do understand, but I still can’t conform. (Conformity deserves a post by itself by the way.)
Most of my childhood memories are tinted in shades of beige, orange, and brown. Occasionally interrupted by a forest green, a pioneer blue, and communistic red.
As mentioned in last week’s post, the lack of advertisement facilitated an East German monochromy. The grocery stores did not have exotic fruits, therefore the natural colors were limited to our climate zone, except for the occasional citrus fruit from Cuba, but there is just another shade of orange. The only exception was my grandma’s flower garden.
My first memory of West Germany is overwhelmingly in color. I was 11 years old and visiting our „West relatives“ for the first time. Every East German citizen received 100 DM Begrüßungsgeld, welcoming money, when entering the BRD for the first time. My parents guarded my money, but I was allowed to buy whatever I wanted from a craft supplies store. When we entered the shop, a wave of colors drowned out every thought or desire I had. The colors were so vibrant it was hard to see anything. My preteen brain had to learn how to process this downpour of information first. I simply was missing certain neuron connections. My parents helped me pick out an origami book, and some origami paper in all colors of the rainbow and beyond. I ended up using only a few sheets and saved the rest until I found them again in my thirties when I decluttered my childhood possessions and decided to recycle them.
After the wall fell, we were all drawn to color. Especially pink, purple, and turquoise, which we were deprived of our entire childhood. But the monochromy stayed. I liked blue, and all of a sudden the furniture in my new post-communist bedroom was all in blue. Up until today, my mother likes to dress very elegantly, and her wardrobe and accessories are carefully curated to the same tone of color.
In my twenties, I visited a good friend, who was a nurse in her forties living alone. I will never forget her apartment. It was colorful, but not overwhelmingly. It felt very happy. Her couch was purple, her desk was turquoise, and each of her kitchen chairs had a different color. When I asked her about it, she just answered „Why not? I like color.“
Today our sofa is also purple, our rugs are red. I painted our wood stove green and our kitchen backsplash is a weird mustard-olive. I am very drawn to colors that are hard to define and are not prime colors. I love it when our children dump out their Lego Duplo and swamp the floor with color.
In 2003, when I was a university student, one of my friends in Dresden went to Cuba on vacation. She came back and couldn’t stop talking about the calming, relaxing effect of the lack of advertisements and billboards, and how it surprised her. She had never given it a second thought before. „Wie damals im Osten.“, „Just like back in the East.“, she would conclude with a smile. Ads appearing all over the public realm were just one small splash in a tide that swept over the entire country. No one really noticed it nor cared.
I do love our decluttered space, it calms my mind, and makes everything easier. I wear mostly black or blue, and I did reduce patterns in our house. But I am refusing to let go of colors. They make me feel alive and happy, suggesting endless possibilities. Just like my grandma’s flower garden.
