Chemotherapy and Colour

Robyn here.
I wanted to write briefly about the strong effect colour had on me during the darkest part of the year's journey.
Early on, I found a cotton duvet cover at an op-shop in a retro design with circles of brown, tan and mustard. I loved it, and fashioned a pleated skirt (above right) out of the fabric, and even spent some time planning to applique and embroider the individual circles. But at the peak of this i suddenly went completely off the fabric and most particularly off brown, tan and mustard.
It seemed to me then that the chemotherapy was about death and faeces. Each cycle, during the cell-death phase, the first week, I became terribly constipated, probably a side effect of the anti-nauseants. Then my cells would recover and everything started to move again. For me, brown and tan and mustard, as colours, and rich dark stews such as lamb's shanks, which we ate to build up my blood cells, belonged to that dark death week, and after a while I couldn't bear any of them.
The Picasso Collection was on at GOMA and I went, wearing my new skirt, its only outing. I found that I was drawn to paintings completely by colour, and that what I was craving was spring colours: mint green, pink. I spent most of my time standing in front of two paintings: one (not picasso) full of clouds on a light blue sky, and one (picasso) cubist still life with lampshade and blocked sworls of soft mauve. I was drinking in the freshness. I went home and buried the brown shades in the recess of my cupboard. My taste from then was for fresh, bright colours (above left).
I spotted a like minded patient at radiotherapy with emerald trousers and a bright, light yellow head scarf. The soul cries out.