Is it Black and White

Really you ask.  Black and white?  How about the gray, a humorous side to all this.  Yep my friends I would have to say yes.  Indeed a humorous side exists.

Have you ever noticed that black is a very death reflected color.  Why?  Why when I walk into a group, or look at pictures of grief, black is always indicated in some shape or form.  Whether it is the clothes bound to those in mourning or the binders of information for those who seek hope through groups?


Well I rebelled.  I  turned everything having to do with mourning into pastels, warm greens, forest greens, colors that aesthetically give hope.  My lord, you would've thought I broke a social law.  Is it really so important that we MUST, just because others think we should, bear the burden of pain for up to one year, two years or even three years?  What about the hope the person who loved us would want us to have?  The hope that our lives can continue on and it is okay.  How about if we set our own comfort levels!

The reactions to doing something out of the ordinary but making what is perfect sense to me can cause quite the ruckus!  I don't mean to, but I think its a valid point.  As individuals who have lost someone we love, our confidant, our best friend, the very half of us...we need to be shed with hope that we can be whole again and that's okay.

Reality, black is neither negative nor positive.  Yet we have caused it to be associated with all that is bad in our lives.  What has black ever done to us?  Its really quite a beautiful color.  It matches with everything!

Why then is white always associated with good.  White is a pain in the rear end.  You ever try to wear a pair of white pants and keep them clean all day?  I can tell you black has done me more justice and purity than white ever has on a rainy day.

Signals.  All signals that are sent and our minds interpret our own way.  Yet society has so much to do with it also.  I asked a very wise person last week, "What is wrong with me?  Does the deep furrowed worry line on my forehead state, "If you are strange, please stop to talk to me I'll listen"  I've been having this situation from quite frequently throughout life.  As of lately, it has gotten worse.  If an actual "normal" and I truly cringe to say that, but anyway, if a person like that even came near me...would I notice him or her?  Probably not.  Hence I would never know them would I?  Sad isn't it, yet so ironically funny.

The funny thing I have come to realize, indeed, I do wear the signs of, "You may approach me whomever you are for who you are, especially if you are off"  Is this a good thing or not.  I don't know and does it really matter.  I mean at my age is it really worth changing it.  I have so much else I could be doing.  We are all different in some way.

My husband used to just laugh all the time saying, "walking into a crowd of people with you is an adventure unto itself.  The strangest of individual will approach you and you just gab away even though I know you don't have a clue what that person is talking about."

Such is life. The important thing is that person wasn't bothering me and they left feeling understood.  I met someone interesting, and many times someone I really would rather not see again.

One day, while he was going through treatment and was rebelling with doctors orders, he decided he was going to see what it was like through my eyes.  Poor fella.  So we end up in downtown and young people all around us were wearing fox ears and tails, or wrapped up in samurai looking outfits sporting silver painted plastic swords, some quite odd outfits.  He was proud to report to me an Anim'e convention was in town hence the costumes.  Bravo!  That's explains it all, I thought the samurais were on a fox hunt.

Then we turn the corner.  Black.  Black everywhere.  Black dog collars, fingernails, cross-bones, chains, boots, all black.  Proudly he says to me, "they must watch a different channel."

I smiled and said, "No sweetheart, they are real, these are Goths.  It is an actual social structure in our society."

What I found wonderful were these young individuals took the time to talk to two weirdo's dressed in jeans, wool sweaters and rubber boots, and tell us exactly why they dress the way they do.  Told us about their philosophy in life.  Now isn't this what living is all about?  I know folks are different, but there is so much to learn from each other.  This was the day I learned black is only what we make it.  Black is just black.  That's it.  It is neither here, nor there, nor good, nor bad.  It is what we make it.

So I suppose if we take life so seriously, then serious is what we will receive.  If we laugh and see the beauty of individuality and humor in life itself, then we are blessed with the ability to have hope.  Even if it means to rebel against the "norm."

Be careful, but try to rebel if you want.  No harm in it.  Try to find something to giggle or laugh about at least once or twice a day.  Then realize, hope, that wonderful hope, is coming back to life in your heart.  Your loved one would want this.