Clothes and Colors

As was evidenced by yesterday's blog, I went out into South Bethlehem to run a few errands. While I walked back to campus, I did some thinking.

I was wearing my brown Lehigh hoodie and as I walked, I watched people. It was starting to get warm in my hoodie, but I knew that if I took it off, then I'd feel cold unless I power-walked. Which got me thinking that I need to find a zip-up jacket that's as warm as my hoodie. I reviewed my wardrobe and remembered that I MAY have a zip-up jacket, but it probably wasn't as warm as my hoodie, and it made me look a little weird, as it probably had flowers on it. :/

My thoughts drifted to my fluffy red jacket and I had to smile to myself - it was warm, for one, and it was a zip-up. Not as warm as my hoodie, but it was warmer than the other jackets I had. As I was considering wearing it the next time I wandered off-campus, I had to stop and think.

I had seen a large handful of people by then and only the people driving in their cars or working in the shops wore any bright colors like red or violet. Everyone else had white, grey, army green, brown, or black, colors that blended in with the mocha-russet colored brick around us. They blended in with grimy sidewalks and rough-barked trees, with black wrought-iron railings and ancient wooden doors and dark alleys and the featureless, bland windows staring blankly at each other, locked in a perpetual staring contest. I walked for about three blocks and I watched everyone I passed and everyone in their cars and everyone on the other side of the street.

The people in their cars blasted their music and their horns at pedestrians in their way but they wore bright clothes, bright violets and reds and greens (but not all at once). I saw red and floral and bright, lively blue. The people walking, those without jackets, wore grey or white or brown with equally-drab jeans or khaki-colored pants. With jackets, they hunched into army-green hoodies or grey jackets, or brown coats and the some such. They blended in with the street and the mud-colored buildings and I wondered if it was a "defense mechanism", that they didn't wear anything bright so that they didn't attract attention to themselves.

Indeed, some people walked like predators, scowling at the ground or the air like a lion or a tiger ready to attack. People who walked in pairs huddled together even though it wasn't cold, and guys walking with girls wrapped their arms around her shoulders. The only people I saw wearing relatively bright shirts were two old men sitting on a stoop and a bench.

The first one wore a weird, faded red that turned it an almost salmon-pink shade. He scowled at the world but I wondered if it was just that his face had frozen that way and he was merely staring blandly at the world to see the goings-on of the people walking by. He turned his head when I approached and I smiled at him, just to be kind, and was rewarded when his scowl cracked and he offered me a tiny smile in return.

The second one was wearing a blue shirt a few shades above navy, bright against the russet-mud color of the brick behind him. He sat on a stoop and smoked and like the first man, seemed to scowl at the world. The lines of his scowl were carved deeply in his face, for all he was many years younger than the old man on the bench. As with the first man, he turned his head when I approached and looked me over as if to ask 'what are you doing here?' I smiled at him, just to be polite, and he seemed amused by it, his eyes crinkling upwards slightly as, just with the other man, his scowl cracked and breathing out a small plume of steam like an old train, he waved the hand he held his cigarette in with the tiniest of smiles. As if realizing that he had just broken his scowl, he gave a low humph and stuck his cigarette back in his mouth and took a long drag, turning away from me.

The only two people who wore colors brighter than brown, grey, white, or army green were old men scowling at the changing world around them. Everyone, I noticed, either gave them a wide berth as if they were about to suddenly lunge and attack them, or walked past as if drawn by an invisible thread, head firmly fixed forward like a horse with blinkers on.

I wonder if the changing season brings about change in the colors of clothes. Perhaps, perhaps. I will have to look out for this. Perhaps, though, as winter approaches a LACK of color would become apparent as coats are drab and boring, blacks and greys and browns with an occasional army green. Hats are sometimes bright, and so are gloves, but it is all in moderation and depending on what is worn.

Hmm... I shall have to look out for it.

~E