Through the different cities of the Gray Zones…

A train ride through Germany in December, from the north to the south. The sky changes various shades of gray, from dark to silver gray. The forest has hues of brown gray, to deep dark green gray. At times when the mulch of the fallen leaves is still yellow and brown the gray has a golden hue to it. I know I am in Germany when I am surrounded with gray. Gray in every aspect, in ambivalence and uncertainty caused by events that promise warmth and deliver an unpleasant chill. Everything that is hope becomes a struggle and everything that is a challenge clarifies itself into a new spectacle of light.

The gray zones, I have always disliked the gray zones and here I have learned that  black and white are seldom part of reality. Everything that is real has a gray tone, because it holds in itself its ambiguity. It hold both sides within, like a seed that holds all the leaves of the tree it will someday become and the darkness of the earth it needs to grow from to reach the sky.

Is accepting gray a part of growing up? By accepting that things are gray do we acknowledge the dissemination of uncertainties? Do we see uncertainties as possibilities therefore a positive thing for expansion? Or is our association with gray negative, because uncertainties are cause for fear and concern?

Black and white have clarity and we seek clarity to be righteous. In order to judge a situation we need to decide which side we are on, black or white. In gray there is no judgment, it holds equally black and white within. All my stereotypes of Germany falls apart as I find myself growing in this beautiful country, and realizing that tolerance requires an adaptation of gray zones. That uneasy feeling of accepting that all is within one universe, and is in constant pendulum between black and white, in the gray zone.