Methods & Muses Vol. 28

Grey is good and good to grapple.

deliberate ambiguity

The first time I heard this phrase I was in high school, and my favorite English teacher, Mrs. Joanne Gordon, spoke it with her soft-Alabama accent. I don’t remember exactly what we were studying, most likely poetry, maybe Keats’s Ode to a Grecian Urn where “we find ambiguity in the first line: Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness. The use of the word ‘still’ is ambiguous in nature. It may mean ‘an unmoving object,’ or be interpreted as ‘yet unchanged.’” - literarydevices.net

At 17, deliberate ambiguity appealed to my attraction to mystery, which was rooted in Catholicism, how I was taught to be content or fascinated with the unknown. The budding poet in me thought, Oh, I can be mysterious on purpose too, like a Romantic poet! Of course, this led my teen pen to write poem after angsty poem, complete with hidden metaphors and what I thought were profound, never-spoken-before statements of pure wisdom.

I laugh now, but at the time, ambiguity was glorious, a crafty tool I loved to wield. Now, with years of experience and further study, I strive to balance what’s inside my imagination with what I want to share most clearly with readers. I honor and offer a little mystery, but I also write as my mentor-poet-friend, Nickole Brown advises, and I say it plain.

Here’s a plain statement with a hint of mystic: Grey is good and good to grapple.

Let me break it down clause by clause.

Grey is good. Why? Because:

Grey winter skies mean long days of dream state, perfect for creativity. Mix in a little snow and there’s a quiet that shines within, if you let it, a silver-feeling. Grey is a sound like geese.

As Wisco-kids, my brothers and I slung ice skates over our shoulders, whistled for our beloved dog and hiked to our neighbor’s cornfield, where the creek was and where the geese gathered. We skated to the sounds of their nibbles on corn, their call watery call overhead and all around us.

Later, I lived in Minneapolis and worked as a barista. One winter night, as my co-worker and I were closing up shop, we heard a flock of geese, but because the clouds were heavy, we couldn’t see them. She and I did not speak a word. We stood still and listened. Hearing geese-song in the grey was pure, holy magic.

Yes, geese hiss and honk, and we Midwesterners may owe some of our nasal accent to these birds, but there is a relaxing rhythm, a depth of timbre like no other in a chorus of geese. Geese-call breaks my heart in a most poetic (mysterious and ambiguous) way.

Grey hair means life wisdom (hopefully I’ve acquired some). I feel I’ve earned this color on my head. I inherited it from my Grandpa, and here’s a little pun. His name was Gene. I have Gene’s genes! Oh, I crack myself up! My hair reminds me to laugh, have patience with myself and others and to embrace my crone status, so when people I love struggle with depression or Seasonal Affective Disorder, I listen and empathize.

Grey can be depressing when it goes on for days. Grey can be frustrating when you want to stop dreaming, go outside and get some sunshine in your eyeballs. This month, after weeks of grey, I ran outside, my boots barely tied, because I saw the blue return, the sun reappear. I didn’t care that it was 8 degrees. I stood with my face in the sun, eyes closed in worship. A woman passed me and said, “God yes, Vitamin D. Isn’t it amazing?” Yes, kind stranger, it is.  

Grey is background canvas, good for contrast. Its presence makes the other colors pop, the sparkles even brighter. Grey makes me appreciate blue sky, and my other home, Florida.

This prompts me to the more ambiguous clause:  (Grey) is good to grapple.

When I first scribbled this subject, this weird title for M&M 28, I thought ‘grapple’ meant to wrestle with a problem or analyze a difficult concept. I was wrong. To grapple means to ‘seize or hold.’ This struck me as funny, because I got it wrong, and because the word still works.

I hold grey. I balance multiple ideas at once:

I have two homes - Wisconsin and Florida. I am marsh and prairie, salt water and swamp.  

I have a country-girl heart, rural sensibility, a need for space, and I have a city woman walk, a need for artists around me, a desire for witty, quirky, salon-like conversations.  

I am grey-silver.

I am girl-goddess and goofy-giggle-guide.

I go with my gut.

I gobble grapes and granola.

I groove in go-go boots.

And I gesture gentle, with goodness and gratitude.

Thank you, Readers. May you silver-shine within this season, and see you next year!