Black

Another friend has passed away. As the third installment here in the relatively young age of my blog to mention death, I won’t go into any analysis or expression about it. What could I possibly add? Besides, I had only known Ibrahim for a few months, and what stays with me, what lingers like a bad taste in the pit of my stomache is how sudden it all was. How quickly he became a part of our days, and how he then abruptly left us as if in mid-sentence, or in Ibrahim’s case, in mid-life.

Having been struck by a number of losses recently, I found myself closing up to this loss, not wanting to feel it or empathize with his family. At least not as deeply as I usually do. This reflected itself in my resistance to wearing black, not in prolonged mourning which is unnecessary, but for any length of my day longer than the duration of the funeral. As a result, I ended up doing something I do not think I have ever done – I actually carried a change of clothing with me to work so that I could change into the appropriately black attire when it was time to make my way to the church, not a moment earlier. As someone who thrives on efficiency and multi-functional outfits, this was totally out of character for me.

I have come to detest black. With this comes a self-explanatory confession that I do not understand people who dress in black from head to toe for the purposes of fashion or to seem slimmer. I also don’t understand people who don it in mourning for periods that far far exceed their time of grief. The social purposes of that totally elude me. Which is ironic because one of the main reasons for which I now detest black is precisely for all its associations with times when I was in mourning. Though I always found it comforting in the first few days when I would feel that the black was sucking out my sadness and emptiness, this was always followed by a feeling of suffocating claustrophobia. No doubt reflections of my personal mourning process… and who would want to keep remembering what they were feeling then?

So, as I was saying, I hate black. Whereas classy in parts with splashes of pure, bright colour, I find it burdensome when displayed in continuous, uninterrupted form. It takes on a life of its own that I would rather put aside rather than be reminded of. If you’re thinking that it’s a life that I’ve actually created in my own perception, you’re absolutely right. But guess what – my blog, my irrational ramblings… deal with it!