'The Color Mauve'

Mauve is not pink. It is not purple. It is the color that exists in the space between those two declarations, the color that refuses the easy name, that slides toward dusty rose when the light is warm and toward lilac when the light is cool and stays exactly itself when you stop trying to pin it down. Hydrangea knows this color from within. Dara flowering carrot — that wild, lacy, dark-centered umbel — arrives alongside it in the exact shade of a shadow on a petal.

Together they make the case for mauve as a position, not just a color. For the little girl who, when asked what her favorite color is, says something specific and true that takes a moment to understand.

For the girl who names colors correctly.