Black is back

I had hung up my black coat, kicked off both of my pom-pom ballet flats, shimmied out of my black tights, and slipped out of my black sweater dress, then put on my black capri-length yoga pants and my stretchy black yoga top before I realized that every single thing I wore today was black. The only color was in the form of my hot-pink scarf. Back in high school, I remember dressing up for one sort of required fun activity or another and having to borrow someone else's black t-shirt. I wouldn't have that problem now. Where did all of the color go?

I have one idea: when I studied abroad in France, I saw that stereotypes about Parisian women wearing a lot of black were very true. It was the fall and I had a reddish-pink coat that I wore everywhere. Every time I bought something in a store or talked to anybody on the street, I would be spoken to in English. I was in France to learn French, but going to school with Americans who seemed as if they couldn't care less about learning the language, so my only opportunity to pratice was with the random people I encountered in my daily jaunts around the city. It was driving me mad that they would all speak to me in English, but I couldn't figure out what to do about it.

One night I had a dream where I was watching a crowd of people from up above. Everybody in the crowd was wearing a black coat, except for one girl. She was wearing a bright pink coat. I went out the next afternoon to buy myself a new coat, although I couldn't bring myself to pick out a black coat, so I went with dark brown instead. I had never worn much black in my life--it was really hard to shun color in an attempt to blend in.

Though it sounds ridiculous, I was stopped and asked for directions by three different french-speaking people on my afternoon wearing the coat. I had never seen anything like it, but it made me really happy to be able to try to blend in with the people around me. I'm slightly disturbed that I've managed to amass such a large collection of black clothing. Perhaps it's time to accept that I'm not in Paris anymore and wear more colorful stuff!