Stories Told in Color: Black & White
Pictures telling a 1,000 words in France & Japan
Even as a writer, I love how pictures tell stories that words can’t. This series is devoted something else I adore: color.
It may seem ironic to start a series dedicated to color celebrating two technically non-colors, but they are on my mind. Reasons most likely include the fact that…
1) Two woman I work with wear black and white almost exclusively. Both are consistently elegant, not unlike this photo of WHAT’S HER NAME?
2) The color combo has shown up more often in my own outfits and nails recently. Coincidence, circa the above?
3) Black-and-white thinking, circa Trump. The Washington Post already let him speak for himself. Need I say more? (If you haven’t digested Amanda Taub’s reporting on the political science of all-or-nothing authoritarianism, please do.)
4) I visited a country last month whose minimalism oft-manifests via this hued duo: Japan. From Tokyo to Kamakura, Hakone to Kyoto, I marveled my way through the technically non-colored ubiquity.
Speaking of which, welcome to Tokyo.
(Please read the captions; they are part of the story!)
It was the same afternoon I bought these:
Aren’t they lovely?!
I experienced a similar sense of wonder the next day after I bullet-trained to Kamakura. The town is famous for a 13M bronze Buddha that symmetrically hails from the 13th century — and survived a tsunami in 1498 that destroyed the entire surrounding town.
But I was captivated by something else: Flags that share fortunes with shrine visitors several miles away.
That sensation repeated again the following evening in Hakone, when I sat in a trolley car that proffered up this view.
Before you look, imagine yourself on a hillside so steep that the train must ascend in a zigzag that will instinctively remind San Franciscans of Lombard Street. The hills are rocky and almost black. The Japanese maples, stately. Between their leaves, self-sequestering light shafts iteratively remove themselves from the day, flirting in a fashion not unlike the many timid eyelashes you’ve seen this trip.
Now imagine how piercingly you cry when you see this fog.
And now, to France.
Some people in the above photo were likely on their way to the next:
Fun fact: According to “emotion recognition” technology, Mona is only 83% happy. Fear and disgust comprise another 15% (Source).
At left is an outfit I wore several times in that summer in France. The cute Airbnb host had left out some of her hats for guests to wear. It was a gesture almost as quaint as her lovely flat in the 9th arrondissement.
Do you see the goblets? I found them at a local flea market. I doubt they’re really from the 1920s like the seller said, but the possibility was intriguing enough to buy them.
I drank as much champagne as water that summer, and discovered in the process that these flat champagne glasses were originally fashioned after Marie Antoinette’s breasts. Unfortunately, the shape makes champagne lose its effervescence quickly.
And then there was espresso…
Though the above is a sweet note to end on, I’ll also share the below from TED Talks. It’s a great antidote to something we all have: Limiting beliefs and sometimes black-and-white thought patterns.
“30 Ways to Happy: When trying to be perfect stops being fun” is Caitlin Roberson’s first book available on Amazon (https://goo.gl/L7i2F1), Audible (https://goo.gl/2H9tG5), iTunes(https://goo.gl/RqQiRu), and Kindle (https://goo.gl/EGyqgY).
