In middle school, I got into an argument with my friend over the color of my shirt. I said it was orange; she said it was red. While it could’ve passed as either, it was definitely a red-orange: too yellow to be red, but too red to just be orange.
While oranges are typical for fall, red-orange is my favorite natural shade of fall.
The Red Maple outside of my room turns a bright red-orange every fall. Though the leaves are technically red, at least according to Google, the ones outside my sky-blue room always have a tinge of orange. They pile up on the green grass, making them appear even brighter. They lay there until they get stabbed and gathered by rakes to burn. The few stray leaves stay until they are covered in bright white snow and dried out by the next year. And then it starts again.
My favorite sunrises and sunsets are not those of pink and purple but of bright oranges. While sunsets are painted over a bright sky blue, sunrises contrast with the midnight blue sky. Sunrises in these colors are even better than sunsets of the same. The bright red-orange against the dark blue is best described by the word “autumnal;” it’s how all of autumn feels in one morning. Even though red-orange is aggressively bright, it’s always more soothing when softly illuminated as the sun rises.
Red-orange is the highlighted color of my brother’s Nerf guns. Now, they sit discarded in a wicker basket in the basement, but they were once in full use. For no apparent reason, my brother always loved to pull out one of his (at least 20) Nerf guns and shoot foam darts at me. He insisted that they didn’t hurt, but I never saw him being mercilessly fired at. Though we are past that point now, red-orange still brings up memories of little foam bullets being lost around my house.
Red-orange burns in summer campfires. I grew up on the lakeside with countless bonfires. I would try so hard to fry my marshmallow to golden brown but always end up with it burnt. My face would steam from the aggressive heat constantly wafting at my face. Campfires have always been one of my favorite scents. It’s such a nostalgic smell, and it never fails to remind me of my years of enjoyment around bonfires.
Red-orange has always reminded me of happy, easy times. It greets me on the best of mornings and warms me on humid nights. It waves in the wind out my window and shoots by my head in my memories of the past.
