Skip to main content

kodachrome gray

broken gray skies
Gray:  a nondescript color living somewhere between black and white; a mood or disposition that’s not quite foul, just rather dull and monotonous.   Skies are scrubbed in shades of gray.   Ashes in a smoldering fire are shadows of gray and my hair has subtle streaks of silver, a kind way of saying gray.  Heck, my furniture is a browned touch of gray, we’ll call it bark.  Doesn’t that sound better?  I wear the color - literally and figuratively.  It’s comfortable.

gray skies are just clouds passing over
Duke Ellington

Hold on!  All is not lost in a biosphere of vague doom and gloom, Will Robinson (1960’s Lost in Space).  Danger, schmanger!   Gray drapes itself as an obscure background to play up whatever is dropped against it.  This Switzerland of the color wheel exposes design, shape and form; making junk dazzling and perky.  Much like that morning person who needs to be a tad less cheerful before the coffee has had a chance to do its magic.

same photo - kodachrome
Portland has been gray for the past several days.  Yet, brilliant carroty, chocolate and almost translucent yellow leaves bob against the dark sunshine as gaudy trinkets laughing at the drab.  Do you see them?  Do you focus on the gray?  If everything was in Kodachrome cinematography there would be no place for our eyes to rest.  We all need a plop of neutral to stay chill in the frenzy; a cocktail of color.

Can you guess what I’m wearing today?  Yep, a gray t-shirt, but it has two bright white axes across the front.  I’m chopping my way through a monochrome existence…

Missy


If you have been mildly amused, challenged or inspired by what you have read, please pass on my blog to a friend, colleague, family member or even random acquaintance


Comments

  1. Wildlife Art by SylNovember 5, 2014 at 8:46 PM

    Gray is good..my hair is silver with gray streaks which ultimately match my soft gray tee that I love together with blue jeans and splashy red earrings..yep, gray is good...this is one of the best blogs you have written..Love Mom

    ReplyDelete
  2. Missy ANovember 6, 2014 at 10:05 AM

    Thanks, Mom. This morning I woke to a giant yellow-orange orb - almost didn't recognize Mr. Sun. Now, it's the liquid variety, and gray.

    ReplyDelete
  3. sewsavyNovember 11, 2014 at 7:44 AM

    I loved this. Yes, the eyes need a place to rest. So does the body on those gray days sometimes. You tickle me with the perkiness of junk! I'm even perky before the coffee but know many who can't be spoken to until at least one cup has passed their lips. They are gray indeed. We have grey here today as well. What a welcome respite. I'm missing fall entirely. :(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Missy ANovember 17, 2014 at 12:59 PM

      Thanks, Marlene. When do you come home? It has been really cold, but crystal clear and beautiful.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

urban girl in the country

green in concrete For the last lot-of-years I’ve lived in urban areas.  I’ve become a city girl with hints of a flower child mixed with hipster nuances…translated I like to wear skinny jeans.  This is the total opposite of how I grew up, which was on a farm.  My paternal grandparents grew, raised, caught and hunted for everything they ate – radical organic, free-range stuff.  On my Mom’s side of the fam tree, there were green grocers and orchard growers.  Heck, I was in 4-H raising feeder calves and a small flock of wooly sheep.  Gardens, canning, freezing and preserving everything was the ordinary. I carried on the gardening-preserving, saving the spoils piece, until I found myself in fresh veggie-at-a-farmer’s-market heaven!  The foreign city I found myself in had a temperate climate where fruit and vegetables could be grown year ‘round, and … it was sold at a giant open air market every week.  Yippee!  I no longer needed to ...
8 comments
Read more

are you strong enough to do it together?

reflecting - paulina lake, october 2015 Weekend getaways are all about kicking back and well, getting away from the entire buzz of life.  Caffeine excluded from this statement. Somewhere around noon of day two’s whatever we want to do schedule, my baby and I decided to hike around the lake that we’d been watching transform before our eyes.  The distance was seven and a half miles according to the sign.  That sounded totally do-able.  Especially since yesterday we had ventured out on two shorter hikes that amounted to six or so miles.  Besides, we’d walked a small part of the trail; it seemed like a pretty comfortable walk by the lake.  First glances can be deceiving. Now, in all fairness to avid outdoors people, it probably was easy peasy.  But to this urban girl, who only a few years ago had given up her love of walking due to not pleasant back pain from nerves having their life squeezed out; this hike was of larger-than-life proporti...
4 comments
Read more

Parking on the verge

Sort of parked on the verge...at least it's mostly grass Living in Australia taught me many earth shattering things, like beets are called beetroot, but carrots are not called carrotroot.   You “ring” when you are phoning someone and to “call” is actually to stop by.    You can understand my American confusion at some of the Aussie ways and vernacular.   Fortunately, we had great friends that kept us straight on proper protocol in this once penal colony. Terminology tweaks set aside, there was the whole driving on the left side of the road.  What’s up with that?  Is it because they are on the other side of the world or just trying to be oh, so British?  I must admit, I never did relaxed when cars were careening toward me from the “wrong” lane.  Now, that we’re on the subject of cars, it is perfectly natural to park in the verge.  To be honest, I didn’t know what a “verge” was.  Oh, I knew the word as in “edge or limit” but i...
4 comments
Read more