Instead, mid-June found me haphazardly teetering in heels waiting for my peppermint latte at a local coffee joint (no, it’s never too late or too early to indulge in peppermint treats, nice try, Jack Frost) as I aimlessly listened to Dazed and Confused’s prodigy inform me that what the world needs now is more color, while holding his triple-shot almond milk. For the record, I snarkily thought to myself, “Actually I prefer pastels,” but, alas, the Southern charm imprinted deep in my bones prevailed, and I politely nodded and gave my best doe-eyed stare.
Is color really what the world needs? Maybe I’m alone in this opinion, but I feel as if my senses are bombarded daily with color — in the noise from the television beyond the book I’m reading, in the stoplights as they change from red to green on my route to work and in the incessant need to constantly surround myself with others.
As I sat that night in an old renovated theatre in Nashville, and watched a black and white adaptation of “Much A Do About Nothing,” I couldn’t help but be at peace that my mind wasn’t overloaded with color. I need not focus on the breathtakingly blue hue of the lead actor’s eyes, or the saturated pigment of the starlet’s gown. I only focus on the dialogue and meandering looks between characters. The movie hinted of the simplicity a life lived sans-color provides, a simplicity so often overlooked.
As an expat I had dreams of adventures in one of the fastest growing culture capitals in the United States. I wanted not just association with the glittering things, I wanted the glittering things themselves. My mind was alive with the grand adventures to be had — the whole city alive with the color of neon signs and infinite flannel patterns.
But as the summer wore on, many of my days were met with loneliness, characterized by a life filled daily with people and color and a forgotten respect for the black and white simplicity of solitude.
There were numerous nights filled with symphonies and concerts in intricately designed auditoriums, free shows in the park and the alluring smell of food trucks.
Yet in between these moments, the extrovert within me failed to cope with the newfound downtime and felt drowned in the ever-daunting sea of strangers.
It’s then I realized there is an understated beauty in learning to enjoy one’s own company. It’s a beauty that must be learned singularly.
I am by no means advocating you go start a colony of hermits and throw John Donne’s mantra to the wind. I merely believe the world may need lives characterized by pastels, a swirling interlay of black and white moments infused with color. Lives characterized by the nights you’ll never forget, shining on a neon sign in your catalog of memories.
These moments are then intricately woven with the black and white snapshots of a life, memories easily forgetable, yet quietly laying the foundation of who you are.
Somewhere between the symphonies and Bob Dylan, I found contentment. The thought of staying in alone on a Friday night would once have plagued anxiety on my adolescent mind. Yet, somehow I slowly found contentment in curling up with Netflix and “Manhattan,” and letting Woody Allen’s neurosis ease my insecurities away. The simplicity of spending a night curled up absorbed in a novel no longer seemed a sentence of social exile; and spending a night cooking for one no longer led to dejection, as long as there was Tom Petty humming along.
An art I for so long deemed loneliness seems to be a moniker mislabeled for a lesson in contentment. A lesson that proves the grayscale moments of life carry a simplicity that harmoniously prepares and teaches an appreciation for the vibrant days ahead.
