A Signature Color

~ Kana Smith

It was sometime in junior high or high school that my mom and my sister and I started the tradition of painting our toenails at the beginning of Spring Break vacations. We lived in a place where the snowbanks hadn’t melted by March, so our toes wouldn’t have seen the light of day since the previous summer. And if our vacation meant warm weather (or better yet: warm weather and a beach somewhere!), our toes were about to go dancing through the sand, so they deserved to get dressed up.

It was a celebration, the annual Painting of the Toenails, and the tradition has carried over and expanded to include any warm-weather vacation.

I mention it because I’ve just painted my toenails!

Our Hawai’i vacation is looming, I’ve already packed my swimsuits and snorkel gear, and my toenails are now the shade of turquoise that will match them. My mother calls it An Outfit (capital-O) when things match—and my toenails are now ready to be part of An Outfit, in combination with any of half a dozen swimsuits.

If I were a famous person being written about in a gossip magazine, they would call it my “signature color.” Since I’m not famous, I’m just a person who is weirdly, obsessively consistent in her color-choices.

Except for one slice of yellow shirts that I have to wear for work (blech), my entire closet is shades of turquoise and teal. Really. All of it. I don’t just mean I like that color and have some shirts that color. I mean I generally won’t buy a shirt that doesn’t come in that color-range.

There are a number of benefits of being weirdly, obsessively consistent with color.

photo of the writer's closet, with shirts all in a range of turquoise and teal

When I find a cute and comfortable shoe, it will go with everything. The rose-gold and turquoise sea turtle necklace? Goes with everything. When I found the perfect cross-body bag for travel, it goes with everything. My turquoise toenails will go with everything.

The list goes on and on, because everything goes with everything.

It simplifies a lot of things, really. It’s easy to shop, to pack for a trip, to get dressed in the morning. I’m particularly focused on that “packing-for-a-trip” angle right now, with our departure-date nearing. As I wrote in my book, A Travel Tutorial for the Rookie Adventurer, working with a mix-and-match color palette gives you more options with fewer items—which is just what you want in your travel wardrobe.

This morning saw a flurry of pre-packing tryings-on of various things, and celebratory slam-dunking of a number of items into the Goodwill give-away bag for happy reasons (meaning: weight loss). I was aiming for nineteen-pounds-down by the time we went on this trip. With a few days yet to go, I’m at seventeen-down, and pretty damn happy about it!

This morning, just for fun (and because apparently I CAN!) I put on my wedding dress. You’ll never guess what color… Okay, you might not guess, because I made an exception and got married in royal blue.

This is me waiting in the church nursery, where I swear the world’s SLOWEST clock resides. I practically threw myself down the aisle when I finally got sprung loose.

I may have been eager.

Ten years later, I may still be eager.

photo of the writer in a blue wedding dress, sitting on a rocking horse in a children's nursery

I am definitely eager for Friday to arrive, and airplanes, and the airplane door opening in Kona and the whoosh of island air coming in…

My anticipation is so keen it’s almost sensory.

My turquoise-painted toes are ready to touch down, because I will be joyfully barefoot for ten days. Clad in turquoise and barefoot—my natural state.

28 thoughts on “A Signature Color”

  1. Turquois is a combination of blue-green.

    When I was teaching, we used to use an interesting system to analyze a student’s focus area.

    The system was called “Winning Colors” and it was interesting how accurate we found it to be in analyzing the personality traits and abilities of certain students. There were the four basic colors cards: Red Bown, Green and Blue. The students were given all four colored cards, and they were asked to look at the front of the card which has a whole series of pictures. The idea was for them to pick out the card that best described them in your case it might have been “Green”.

    The traits of someone who is “Green” is they like changes and improvements they’re dreamers they are generally artistic and analytical in their thinking they liked being their best caring and venting always seeking more knowledge extracting information listening and they want to know their future, and they want to be free in thought. In most cases they love the sciences and mathematics, and they are detailed planners.

    The “Blue” in the “Turquoise” color would indicate that you are a Relater you like being with people you like dealing with people friendly giving you see everything and you like to talk, you tend to be romantic. your catch phrase would be “let’s get along with each other”, I am wanting people to like me.

    Now when we would turn the cards over, we would ask them to reanalyze themselves.

    The “Green” color was referred to as the “Planner”. The statement on the card is “the planner part of me is very strong. I’m quiet and I only speak when I’m sure that people will not laugh or make fun of me. I like to be correct and do things right. I look at all of the details and like everything to be perfect. I’d like to listen to other people’s inner world and see what makes them tick. I enjoy science fiction. I would like to explore the universe. I love to make and think about new things that no one has ever thought of before. I am calm, cool and collected on the outside but not always on the inside. I hide my strong feelings. I keep a secret like a tomb. I want to think and dream.

    Ask yourself these following questions Is this a part of your vocabulary:

    I like talking about important and deep things, I like thinking things out step by step and that makes sense to me. I like solving mysteries of all kinds. I am creative and like discovering things. I like to be part of change and revolution let’s be serious and truly listen.

    And then the back of the card also had a list of people and locations that these various attributes and behaviors would be exhibited by.

    When we dealt with the “Blue” card, the,” Relator Card”, The relater part of me is very strong I love being with people. I want many friends and love to talk a lot. My feelings are very strong, and I show them easily. I do not like to be left alone. I like to touch things. I like it when people praise and pay attention to me. I want to be loved and belonged.

    The relator’s vocabulary read something to the effect, “I want to love and feel with people, I love talking about other people’s problems. I like pretty, colorful clothes and things. Honest feelings and friendly people are more important to me than things. Hugs are special when I choose, I like to do fun things, let’s get along and work together.”

    I found over the years that these cards were very accurate. And determining a person’s personality. As a teacher gave me some personal direction on things like careers. It gave me a chance to help them with some of the problems that they might have. For example a Blue person wears their heart on their sleeve, they want to love everybody and be loved by everybody, and they want to help people. It’s a very noble trait, and something that as a teacher I was able to use in my classroom to help that student make it through some difficult times.

    “Greens,” my “Planners”, would get very frustrated with things because they wanted things in a nice neat orderly package and sometimes that just didn’t work out very well. But when it came time to helping write lesson plans, or reviewing things, were working with my computers they were the first persons that I went to.

    So, with your decisions to pick “Turquoise” as your favorite color I wonder if you are not a “Blue Green” person, or possibly a “Green-Blue” That would tell me a lot about you just in the few things that I’ve seen you write so far. As we age our preferences tend to blend and we adapt to a unity color, in your case “Turquois”.

    A number of years ago I was going through physical therapy I had torn my rotator cuff while I was hiking up on the Appalachian Trail in Maine. I fell off a rock face about 8 feet and landed on my shoulder. A lot of pain. I ended up hiking 280 miles up to the top of Mount Katahdin that way. When I returned home I had surgery and an extensive 8 weeks of physical therapy.

    My physical therapist and I became very good friends and I was telling mark about this Winning Colors program that we used in school, and his wife who also worked with him asked me to analyze there are three children. So I gave them some of the materials and the cards and asked them to do their sort of the cards to determine what their best card was what their second best card was what their neutral card was and what their worst card was from there I developed a personality statement for each one of them gave it to them and I thought nothing of it for the next 10 years.

    Last month my wife went through hip replacement surgery then we went back to my physical therapist hurry recovery therapy. His wife was working one afternoon and when I was there and she got me off the side and said Pete do you remember that report that you did on my kids many years ago? Well I found it a few months ago when I was looking through some old papers. So I asked her how accurate we had been with that assessment while they were in high school. It turned out that it was spot on. Every one of the career fields that we had indicated they might be interested in is where they had gotten their education and we’re now working.

    Their relationships had developed along the same lines as the prospectus that we had made many years ago. They were all married with children at this point and each of them were quite secure in their careers and their family lives. Which is what we had anticipated.

    So, if you’re a “Turquoise”, you might be a blend of both the “Blue” and the “Green” personalities. Now I’ve never met you. But it’ll be interesting for you to comment on this assessment and see how accurate it is. Just from what little I know about you.

    Enjoy. “Hardcharger”

    http://www.ptaylorvietnamadvisor.com

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  2. Smart! I always thought black would be the color to go with everything, but there are so many shades of black it’s difficult to pair clothing items together. With turquoise and teal, it doesn’t matter. It all goes! Enjoy your vacation and make sure to blog about it!

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    2. You would THINK black would be safe in that regard, but you’re right—it could be too easy to look like a “near miss,” or like you got dressed in the dark, if you’re layering or putting blacks on blacks… I’m aiming NOT to have to think when I get dressed, lol! ;)

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      1. I can’t even imagine that kind of cold anymore. We are planning a trip back home next Christmas and I told my sister I would be stealing half of her clothes because I will be too cold.

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      1. I guess I just don’t want to draw attention to myself. I have gained a lot of weight over the last few years and my teeth have shifted so they look bad. I am starting invisalign soon and am hoping when that is all done, I will feel better about my smile at least.

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        1. I can see that. The Invisalign might make a world of difference!—I had braces as an adult (sadly, not the invisible type) and I felt like a whole new person when they came off! :) Sending good wishes for YOUR smile!

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  8. Enjoy your holiday! I rather Envy you going to a warm climate 😊I like all your turquoise and teal colours and it makes it very easy. I love colour rather than wearing black, white or grey. My go-to colours are boysenberry/plum or deep teal/petrol blue but then I enjoy accent colours of mustard or coral or green.

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  13. I love how you explore the idea of a signature color as more than just a shade—it becomes a reflection of identity, mood, and memory. The way you connect color to personal expression makes this piece feel both intimate and universal. It’s inspiring to think about how each of us carries hues that tell our story, whether bold or subtle. Thank you for sharing such a creative perspective—it really makes me want to reflect on what my own signature color might be.

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