Around our house cobalt blue is called “Debra blue” because everyone knows how much I love the intensity of that hue. I wear it, collect it, plant it. I’ve been told I’m drawn to this color because the lightwaves projected by cobalt blue resonate with my own wavelengths. Or something like that. More simply put, I have a cobalt vibe.

Lobelia’s a thready little plant that comes in white, sky blue, lavender, deep purple and you guessed it, cobalt. A friend says that the cobalt variety makes her eyes dance. Naturally it’s the first hue to go at the garden centers, so some years I manage to find only a few packs. Other years I luck out and find a whole flat. This spring was a whole flat year. Usually I tuck a few plants in among the other flowers in the window boxes and planters, parceling out these little sprigs of visual ecstasy in amongst the marigolds, verbena and vinca.

But this year, once I’d finished the window boxes and the planters, I had a good half flat left over. Where else could I tuck it in? And then it came to me. Why not have an entire intense patch of this dreamy color to meditate on, swoon over, lose myself in? How extravagant! Why not indeed. And so I did. Instead of parceling out these eye-dancing plants in mincing steps, I planted close to forty of them — yep, I choreographed an entire stage of deep blue brilliance to shimmy beneath the shade of our dogwood tree.

Why do we give in to our pleasures in such tight little bundles? Whether it’s watching three movies in a row, or eating a banana split, or hunkering down under the covers to read for an entire afternoon, we should be going for the cobalt, losing ourselves in that very thing that makes not only our eyes dance, but our souls, too.

What is your cobalt? Got it? Now go for it!