purple and yellow.

I keep thinking about pale yellow and purple and how nicely they go together.

I think those colors do, anyway.

I don’t like it when things match too well. It bothers me. Something needs to disagree; something needs to tap out a rhythm to contrast all those elongated notes.

Somebody once chastised me for never matching; she said that I mismatched. And I was like, I know. I think she was trying to help me or something. Maybe make fun of me. But whatever it was, it only helped confirm to me that yes, purple and yellow go together just fine.

Because style is all about putting on the outside what you feel on the inside, right? And well, I never will feel the same way as that girl. I will never feel a bunch of cartoon snoopys on an emerald green v-neck tee and she will never feel ripped up high tops and yellow sweater leggings and the world will keep spinning it’s slow spin anyway.

Because the world doesn’t care so much, at least not enough to stop it’s perfectly suitable job of rotating, and I think that’s a good idea. We shouldn’t care enough to stop our jobs, either. About what everyone else is wearing, I mean.

You know when I was not so tall and not so blond I was a tomboy. Maybe it was the fact that my house was crowded with some of the best boys you’ll know, or maybe it was the fact that I have the kind of parents that care more about an open heart and an innocent mind than hair that is brushed and bangs that are cut evenly across your forehead.

But whatever the case, I liked to dress down.

I mean, real real down.

Specifically, these little cut-off sweat shorts that had a big strawberry stain on the seat of them from when I had the bright idea to sit down while picking strawberries one summer.

And I went to a church that was made up of mostly hippies who had traded in their joints for Jesus and then picked up a guitar to sing about him. And everybody dressed down there. Jeans were Sunday’s best. Really. Which was just fine with me.

But I remember one Sunday when a new little girl visited.

And she wasn’t wearing jeans and she sure as heck wasn’t wearing cutoff sweat shorts with a strawberry stain on the bum. From the looks of her frilly and lacy dress, I didn’t think she’d ever once even picked a strawberry, least of all sat down on one.

And I remember thinking that this new girl probably only comes to church to show off her dresses. And I still remember the ugliness of that thought, how it cast a shadow in my mind like suddenly where I was thinking was on the opposite side of the mountain from the sun.

And that girl came back in her dresses and there I was in my t-shirts, so aware of our differences.

Until one day she invited me to spend the night at her house. And it’s interesting how getting to know someone makes it so that the fact that they wear dresses on Sunday or even bikinis on Monday becomes inconsequential.

In fact, I had a blast with this girl. And we ended up playing with all her clothes–all her pretty clothes–and she even let me borrow some. Suddenly I couldn’t feel so judgmental, I guess. Not when I was wearing them.

And this kind of lesson keeps repeating, too.

The way that we are all more alike than not. The way that I fall in love with people over and over again; and as I do, our differences become both less and more important.

Less important because Oh, sure–we love different people; our respective relationships look different from the outside, but here’s a big theme of love anyway. So let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about the details it’s ripped and mended into our lives. Let’s talk about how it’s the greatest risk you took and dear God, somebody tell me a happily ever after right about now. You can? Then please, come sit down next to me…And you–you can’t? Well, neither can I. So please, come sit down next to me…

And also more important because See how yellow and purple go together? See how the contrast makes my eyes so happy, so interested? See how the world isn’t all a mountain, isn’t all a sea, isn’t all your house, though we all have our preferences still?  See how it’s people who hurt us and people who heal us–and generally speaking, they are not the same people who do both, though sometimes I suppose that works out–but God, we need each other and not just the people who wear the same old ratty t-shirts as us come Sunday morning, either. We need the people who wear dresses to come stand next to us, even when we’re wearing our cutoff sweat shorts.

I guess my point is that we need each other.

And I like purple and yellow together just like God likes all kinds of people mixed up together and then he says, Okay now…Go!

All this to say that purple and yellow really do go together just fine.

Posted by jessica on Feb 27, 2010 | Subscribe
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Loved Ones, Thoughts and Feelings
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