I’ve been thinking a lot lately about love’s choice of clothing. It reminds me of sitting on a bench at a Tube Stop in London England, on my way home to Canada for Christmas last year. I think that love is like someone wearing a bright yellow dress amongst a crowd of head downers. The head downers have their faces in the newspaper, or their faces in their phones and the head downers are wearing black pants and black jackets and black scarves. I’m sure the head downers that passed me that day waiting for my train to arrive have some yellow dresses in their closest. That’s faith, you know. It means believing that the head downers wearing black have some light in their lives, or in other words, they have some love in their lives. Faith is believing that they must at least have some yellow underwear. It’s hoping that their choice of clothing doesn’t reflect the love they must have underneath the black layers. Maybe the head downer’s wear black so that they can absorb as much light and as much love as possible. Maybe they have a better understanding of love than I do, because yellow reflects a lot of light, but doesn’t get to hold it in. But the problem is that all the head downers are wearing black and there isn’t any yellow warmth to absorb.
I’ve been thinking about my clothing choices lately. Sometimes I feel like wearing black, because maybe then I will blend in with the crowd. People won’t stare at me as much then. When I am really being me, I like to turn one of my pink scarves into a shirt somehow and I like to wear big dangly earrings and I like to wear the bright purple dress Candace bought me last year. I don’t think it’s because I like to show off, but I think it’s because what is inside of me feels bright and I want to wear that a little on the outside. When I am really being me, I don’t want to hide. I don’t want to be another black skirt.
Love isn’t a black skirt. It doesn’t stand on the Tube platform wearing the latest black fashion from the coolest retail outlet. It doesn’t pretend to check text messages on the phone as opposed to making eye contact with another black skirt. Love wears the yellow dress because that’s all it knows how to do. It is bright without being a show off and without being overly proud and it is bright because it refuses to hide amongst the others.
Some days I wish I understood love better than I do. You can tell by my obscure reference to love being clothing, that I am really struggling to figure it all out. What I wish is that I could wear love’s yellow dress every single moment of every single day and I wish I wasn’t ashamed. I will never say that places like that Tube Station I sat in is void of love. I will never say that places like Zambia are vibrant with love, (because here it is extremely rare to find someone wearing black). I guess it’s that when I am in Zambia I feel a little more like it’s ok to wear the yellow dress FOR REAL. Wearing it for real, means that when I feel love; I am able to speak it and breathe it and show it. I won’t run away from it, and I will certainly never hide from love; even if it puts me in an outfit that I never imagined I would ever wear. The challenge is there. The challenge is being able to recognize love the second that it steps out of the train and onto the platform. The challenge is to understand that it doesn’t matter how embarrassing it may make you look. The challenge is not denying the feeling that it is something that you want. The challenge has been conquered when you begin to walk after it, inquire about where you can get your own yellow dress and understand that you will never change your style again.
Love will always choose the yellow dress.
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