{"id":3778,"date":"2015-05-23T00:38:43","date_gmt":"2015-05-23T07:38:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3778"},"modified":"2015-05-23T00:38:43","modified_gmt":"2015-05-23T07:38:43","slug":"beyond-the-black-victoria-bc-05222015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=3778","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the Black \u2013 Victoria, BC \u2013 [05\/22\/2015]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ashes_by_imaginaryrosse-d4onvgv\"<\/a>Whenever I don my uniform for my shore-side job (which, being as how I conduct ghost tours, consists of head to toe black), I am presented with the continuing tendancy of human kind to snap-judge based on appearance.<\/p>\n

People who would not normally notice me at all suddenly stare me down out of the corner of their eye, people shift away from me on the bus, seniors shuffle a distance apart from me in the grocery line up and seem honestly startled when I greet the clerk by name in a chipper normal voice and request nothing more than a chocolate bar and a sheet of bus tickets..<\/p>\n

Simply because I am wearing black and have on dark lipstick.<\/p>\n

The nights when I choose to wear red lipstick to work lessen the effect but only slightly.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m certainly not saying that going around automatically trusting people who dress in head to toe jet in the middle of a bright spring day is a good habit to get into either; I\u2019m not advising ignorance, and yet there continues to be something about this whole phenomenon that both puzzles and offends me. I am not unattractive when I\u2019m in uniform (in fact, I look a lot prettier in my \u2018night\u2019 job uniform than I do in my \u2018real\u2019 one\u2026but that\u2019s beside the point), my smile is no less pleasant, my eyes are no less open, if<\/em> you can be bothered to look past the black and actually make eye contact. It\u2019s been my experience that until I have the microphone on and the walking stick in my hand, very few people do.<\/p>\n

It just strikes me that we never really know who we\u2019re judging. Every single person on this earth has darkness inside them, every single one of us has had terrible thoughts at some point, now, very few of us will ever follow those through, many are disgusted or terrified to admit they exist at all; but denying them is fruitless. Darkness is the natural foil of light, and both are part of the makeup of human nature. Part of the make-up of everything in the universe more like. My point (if I have one) is this: the truth is, outside appereances so seldom really reflect the person inside. The more terrifiying criminals in the world don\u2019t go around dressed in cult-black most of the time; watch any crime show to be told that. The flip side of that? Those who do go around making a statement? There\u2019s usually a reason behind that statement, and sometimes it\u2019s not even as a big a deal as they think it is.<\/p>\n

Take me for example, I went through a phase when black was my signature colour. When I never left the house without black make up and pretended not to care what people thought of it. Did that dull the fact that I\u2019m a good person? Nope. Is all the emotional potential that fueled that choice still inside me and still a part of me? Yup. I just figured out a healthier way to deal with it. As did many people. But every person is a balance after all\u2026<\/p>\n

These days I only wear black once or twice a week for work, but it puts me in the unique position to remember what it\u2019s like on the outside of the social acceptance circle.<\/p>\n

So no, I don\u2019t preach ignorance, I don\u2019t advise trusting people your gut tells you not to trust, but I do<\/em> advise questioning what is making you feel that way\u2026and if it\u2019s just their choice of lipstick colour? Maybe\u2026just maybe<\/em>\u2026consider looking a little bit deeper\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whenever I don my uniform for my shore-side job (which, being as how I conduct ghost tours, consists of head to toe black), I am presented with the continuing tendancy of human kind to snap-judge based on appearance. People who … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections-below-the-waterline","category-vacation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-YW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3778"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3780,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3778\/revisions\/3780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}