Hey there, today's episode is hosted by the poet Dianelli Antigua.

Enjoy, and I'll be back on June 22nd.

I'm Dianelli Antigua, and this is the Slowdown.

Thank you. Antigua, and this is the slowdown. I remember when my favorite color was whatever my brother's favorite color was.

If his favorite color was Ninja Turtle green, then so was mine.

These days, my favorite color is burnt orange. I have a burnt orange leather couch with matching pillows.

Burnt orange is the color of bubbly cheese on a pizza, the hem of a summer sunset, the swirl of butternut squash soup.

It reminds me of warmth, a fall, to be at the brink of transformation.

I'd like to think that I, too, exist at the brink of transformation.

Life continues to ask me to change course, and I accept the invitation,

trusting there will be more incarnations of burnt orange in my future.

I believe color carries energy.

It carries memory.

I remember when I was young, coming home from the hospital after being sick,

the teal paint on my bedroom walls suddenly felt overwhelming.

It reminded me of sickness, of that version of myself I didn't want to return to. A few days later, my dad and my uncle painted my walls

a light beige, the color of cream, or the pages of an old book, or the color of my dog's

soft belly when she'd roll over asking for a rub. I remember how calming it felt, how it erased what

the room had previously carried and gave me the canvas to begin again.

I think about that now, how color can hold a feeling or release it.

It can shape the way we move through a space, the way we remember a time in our lives.

And maybe that's part of growing into ourselves,

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