Color Your Life…Lust for vibrancy doesn’t stop here

First ‘89ers Day a brief history:

In 1889 President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed the two-million-acre region of Unassigned Lands open for settlement.  That April, an estimated 50,000 men and women lined up across what is now Oklahoma to make a mad dash for their own little piece of the good life.  By the end of the day on April 22, 1889, both Oklahoma City and Guthrie had established cities.  As Harper’s Weekly put it:

“At twelve o'clock on Monday, April 22, the resident population of Guthrie was nothing; before sundown it was at least ten thousand. In that time streets had been laid out, town lots staked off, and steps taken toward the formation of a municipal government."

This year marked the 82^nd Annual ‘89ers Day celebration in Guthrie, OK.  For some it is a sentimental time to come back to their hometown, cookout with friends and family, participate in the grand spectacular of the parade, carnival, and chuck wagon feed.  Yes, I really did say chuck wagon feed.  For me it was a chance to spend the evening with three of the most amazing women that I know.  Though our life experience has been varied, it is our roots that brought us home well that and perhaps the chance to date carnies.  Wait, I am definitely going with roots.   

My day yesterday reminded me of the ways that we color our lives.  The hues we adapt with chameleon like grace as we move through the world in search of peace, happiness, and Gucci.  The friends that come into our lives and what leads us home.  The things that define us in ways we may not be aware, that are sometimes poetic, sometimes ironic, sometimes just damn embarrassing, but we continue to grow to change. 

In the past three years I have been a veritable child with a pack of crayons, no not the little 8 pack, the big 64, running rampant in my own life.  I have been on a quest for vibrancy, a desperate explorer of experience.  Searching for those things that make my heart sing and that spark of life where the outside world falls away to a wonderland of the five senses.  My friends, bless their souls have decided, perhaps unknowingly, to take this journey with me.

 I will never say that trying to live a life outside the lines is easy.  It is full of people that want to roll their eyes at you or make snarky comments behind your back, sometimes even to your face, but it is in those moments of color I realize that vibrancy doesn’t stop here.  Last night my friends and I witness a couple that redefined color despite their penchant for white jeans and black leather.  It wasn’t the way they groped one another on the dance floor as their white clad legs seemed to meld together ironically to Prince’s Purple rain, it was the way they were totally and completely together.

 See fashion will come and go currently according to In Style magazine the “it” color of the month is marigold, last month it was honeysuckle, and the next month it will become something different.  We change like the color wheel bringing in hues based on our experiences from the black of a broken heart to the pale pink of kindness.  Those shades grow and change as well gaining and losing vibrancy as we make our way across our own big box of 64.

What I learned about life last night I learned from those two people on a dance floor.  To accept someone you have to be willing to be seen with them when they wear feathers and a raccoon tail on their hat.  To truly love someone you have to be willing to take that hat off their head and wear it yourself.   To be an acquaintance with someone you have to share a common bond even if they aren’t coloring their world as you are yours.  To be friends with someone you have to be willing to pick up your own crayon and help them fill in the lines.

I have more friends filling in my lines more than I ever could imagine and I was blessed enough last night to share an experience with them.  It is through our experiences that we have been able to enrich each other’s lives in way that we are probably not aware of.  Even if sometimes it just means letting a friend know that they could totally rock an outfit better then the girl walking past the bar or just getting a simple message that says I believe in you.  Without their lust for vibrancy I wouldn’t be where I am today and able to do what I can do.