Let’s play a little game of imagination:

Imagine blue is, and always has been, your favorite color. Wherever you go, you find comfort in the blue sky, blue birds, and countless other blue things you see. In fact, you love it so much, you paint your home and every single wall inside it varying shades of blue. You’ve planted blue hydrangeas under your living room window and blue delphiniums along your (blue) picket fence.

One day, you are outside tending to your garden when a stranger walks by. You wave, and they wave in return. “Good morning!” the stranger says. “I love your pink house! And your pink hydrangeas are absolutely stunning!”

Pink? Is this person insane? Your home is clearly blue! Baffled, you offer a weak wave and go about your day… albeit VERY confused.

The next day, the stranger once again approaches and compliments you on your PINK abode. Again, you’re confused. Are they playing a trick? You don’t have time to say anything, for they are already half-way down the street. This continues for several days, until one day, offended, you shout: “Hey! Are you an idiot? Stop calling my house pink! It’s BLUE! If you keep calling it pink, feel free to walk down another street!”

Taken aback, the stranger stares at you oddly, then confidently and defensively replies, “Are YOU insane? Your house is very clearly pink… as is everything else in your yard! If you don’t want people to tell you your house is pink, maybe you should stay inside more.” And with that, the stranger huffs off. Anger and hatred towards this stranger creeps in.

You decide that tomorrow you want to avoid the stranger and go on your own little walk around the neighborhood. As the sun rises, you get dressed, put on your glasses, and your comfiest walking shoes. You walk the neighborhood, once again noticing all your favorite blue buildings. The frustrations brought on by the pink stranger begin to fade. Relaxing more with each blue sight, you eventually find yourself on an unfamiliar street. Down on the left, you can see a beautiful house in the most stunning shade of blue. You also notice the owner outside tending to their (very appropriately) blue garden.

You approach the homeowner, who waves a friendly “good morning” your way. In exchange, you offer what you believe to be the most sincerest of compliments. “I love your blue house!”

With a perplexed stare, they finally reply. “You must be confused… my house is white.” The homeowner continues, “Perhaps it’s those glasses you’ve got on? Sometimes they can have a pretty heavy tint to them.”

Your glasses? They don’t have a tint! They’re the same prescription, same frame, and same lenses you’ve had for the last twenty years. If they had a blue tint, you would surely notice… To humor the homeowner, though, you decide to remove your glasses. So confident are you that your lenses are fine, that you almost drop them upon realizing the house in front of you is, in fact, white. It DID only look blue because of the lenses!

You think back on your interactions with the pink stranger and realize they also had glasses on. Now you wonder, what if the rude “compliments” weren’t actually rude, and instead the result of someone wearing pink-tinted lenses? Suddenly your anger at their comments starts to subside. You realize how unfair it was for you to be mad at them for only seeing the world one way… when you yourself had been doing the same.

You wave goodbye to the white homeowner, and instead of putting your glasses back on, finish your walk without them. Of course, there’s a lot less blue, which makes you a little sad, but you begin to notice other LOVELY colors you haven’t seen in quite some time. Green. Purple. Yellow. And yes, even pink! As you finish your walk, you reflect on how much more interesting and fun your neighborhood seems now, with all the different colors. Maybe blue is still your favorite color, but you can admit to yourself that your house stands out quite nicely now that every house isn’t the same color as yours…

 

“We see the world, not as it is, but as we are──or, as we are conditioned to see it.” – Stephen Covey

As we approach another election year here in the United States, it seems fitting that this particular scene in my Passages series would finally be completed. I know it is hard to believe sometimes that members of the opposite party can want the same thing as you, but I assure you, we are all looking at the same problems and hoping for a resolution.

The only problem is our “resolution” is tinted by our own world view and our own truth. We can only understand the world around us with the lenses we have been given. And if we never take them off, try on a different pair, or borrow someone else’s, we will never understand why they believe and see things the way they do. We don’t have to agree to have a conversation. But we do have to understand each other.

So here is my plea for everyone who follows me during this very divisive time in history:

Really, truly, put yourself in someone’s shoes before writing off their opinion. It is easy to tell yourself they’re just coldhearted. It is easy to say they’re just being naïve and unreasonable. 99% of the world is not cold hearted, though and 99% of the world is not naïve and unreasonable. There is a reason, and a VALID one, to why they believe, pray, meditate, act, and vote the way they do. ASK them about it with genuine curiosity and desire to understand. When you disagree, TALK about it.

Don’t share snarky memes on the internet that paint your opinion in a good light and theirs as stupid, nonsensical, or harsh. When was the last time you changed your opinion when someone shared a joke, meme, or video that trashed your belief system? I’m willing to bet that has never happened.

If we want to heal the division that exists in the world and in our hearts, the only way we can do that is to remove our colored glasses and listen, truly listen, to arguments that aren’t our own. We don’t have to agree with them and we can even keep believing what we believe, but we have to listen and learn to understand why the other opinion exists. Understanding leads to conversation. Conversation leads to love. Love leads to a solution.

One final note on the symbolism in this scene:

I wanted everything about this image to be the embodiment of “different.”

I knew I was using my sister Chloë as one of the models, so I needed someone that looked completely different. Fortunately, Hoki’s family, who are all native Māori from New Zealand, came to visit last fall, and so I was able to convince one of my nieces to model for me. She was the perfect contrast to Chloë! Brown hair, almost black eyes, and tanned skin to contrast with Chloë’s blonde hair, blue eyes, and porcelain skin.

Long, flowing locks contrasted with a slicked back bun.

One all adorned in pink, the other in blue.

One visor over the left eye, the other over the right.

One wearing a full ball gown with a streamlined bodice, one wearing pants and a sheer overrobe with a voluminous top.

And yet… they’re both holding the same flowers.

One of the most difficult aspects of this particular scene, though, was conveying the idea of a “lens” that fit with my more fantastical style of costuming. It was a critical part of the image that needed to be done right. Ultimately I found an inspiration image while scrolling through social media of a fascinator someone had made with a wave of lace on top. The thought came to me to use that idea and instead of resting it atop the head, to place it covering one of the eyes. And thus, my lace visors were born. As they gaze through the lace, one views the flowers in blue, the other in pink, when in reality they are the same.