What color is a peach?

Once, a couple of people I knew were arguing about peaches - specifically the color of peaches. One was maintaining that peaches are "peach" and the other was arguing that no, they're more yellow. To solve this dispute, they decided to bring in more people, and I was one of the people polled. Not knowing the underlying dispute, when someone asked me what is the color of a peach, I asked what kind, how ripe, which side. It seems obvious to me that peaches come in many colors, and an individual peach is full of different colors. It's like asking what color a rainbow is.

How often do we take a moment to appreciate everyday, ordinary things? Just look at a peach - not eating it, or even thinking about what it tastes like (oh, yum) but take a moment to receive the extraordinary gift of all the colors on a peach. Yellow, peach, red, green, orange, brown, cream... and in many shades, as well. And of course, the glistening silver of the fuzz.

I think this tendency to want to find one word to sum up a broad experience is dangerous. How often do we find a word-box for someone and drop them in without wondering what other words might apply? Certainly, when someone pushes quickly past me on the train, I might think, "jerk" without wondering if maybe they're in a hurry for a good reason. Similarly, I have a tendency to want to drop a lot of people into the "warmonger" box, dismiss them, and move on with my life. This is wrong, and I know it. Now I've got to work on appreciating other people as much as appreciating a peach.