Pixel Dance

It’s about frost time around here, so I was out taking pictures of the last flowers of the season. I snapped this one of one of a morning glory on my trellis. Morning glories are usually bright cobalt blue. But this one is pink. Utterly neon pink. Not at all what you’d expect from a morning glory. I can’t tell you how many people ask me what it is, and then stare blankly at me after the answer. And I can see what’s running through their mind: “It can’t be. Morning glories are blue.” Yes, they are. And they are pink.

Pink morning glories are a little out-of-the-box. And, you know, I’ve found that we say we want out-of-the-box, but usually, I’m not sure we do. It’s too uncomfortable, frustrating, not expected. We want the box. It tells us what to expect, so we don’t have to be fight-or-flighty. It’s safe and fine, and generally gives plenty of room to feel right. Because I think that’s what we really want — to be right. We like the tags of ingenuity and “outside the lines,” because we don’t want to be seen as stuck, or old-fashioned. And we like the sound of so many things. We like to be spiritual people. We like to be tolerant. We like to be open. It sounds so progressive. But in the end, it’s kind of a broad brush to generally make us feel OK with it all, in our rightness. And I’m not knocking that. What else are we going to do? We don’t want it to be true that we are in-the-boxers. There’s nothing wrong with wanting things to be steady and go well. And you can’t live life entirely in the unexpected. Life throws enough nasty-unexpected our way that we start to equate unexpected and nasty, and the whimsy goes out the door.

I don’t think we know how to leap the edges of the box because we’ve developed everything into a system. There’s a system to learn writing, to design your closet, to count your calories. There’s a system for finding a spouse, reaching happiness, reading the right books. There’s a way to do everything right. Which means everything done out of sheer inspiration or impulse is probably seen as “the wrong way.” Impulse = uncontrolled. Inspiration = undisciplined. Life = safe.

I don’t know about anyone else in the world, but I’m a slave to whimsy. I don’t want to fit in the system. I want to see what happens if I don’t. And I’m not talking about things of morality or social conscience. I’m talking about a song whose second verse doesn’t resolve. Or some hot black boots with a purple dress. Or a pink morning glory. What is the harm in testing the box walls? It may just be delightful out there. . .