West Coast Summer Solstice: Quaker Gray

Boots: Ecco; Dress: Soprano; Camisole: Reitmans; Hat: from Barefoot Contessa ; Jacket, purse, earrings, necklace: vintage; Large Ring: Birks: Small ring: Mikel Grant

Summer Equinox got it all wrong this year. This was supposed to be the day with the very most sunlight in the whole year. But this is the West Coast. So it was gray. That's how it works here. It's gray. A lot.

So, when you think about it, Summer Equinox got it just right... for here.

Personally, I've learned to find incredible beauty in our gray coast. I fell in love with it when I was a six year old immigrant here, and I love it still.

When I look up at the slate gray mountains across the slate gray water, veiled in softer gray mist and clouds, I feel a deep sense of wonder and mystery, like I'm breathing in something mystical, maybe even divine.

 I like this photo because I think it makes me look like a little old lady.

Yes, sometimes I do trudge along in the grey and rain and feel a little brought down, but not as much as you'd think.

Classic Quaker image: The Presence in the Midst

Besides, I was raised Quaker. Quakers traditionally wore nothing but grays, whites, and blacks. If a Quaker lady can't learn to like gray, she's doomed.

Finding the mystical, the wondrous, and the divine within quiet, subdued simplicity is the Quaker way. It suits me sometimes.

My God, I still have cheekbones! What a nice revelation.

Though even this subdued outfit would not pass Quaker muster. Not with the lace, the green hat...

... and the jewelry.

It's true that there is an odd sense of stoicism that comes from living with this much gray and this much rain, but it's nothing compared with the stoicism the rest of Canada needs to endure its winters.

And I felt a little bit tough and "street" in my sombre grays, silvers, and black leather.

Besides, even on the gloomiest of days here, gray is not actually the only colour.

There is also green. There is a LOT of green. The forests are dripping with it. We are, after all, a rainforest clime here.

I may have chosen this forest green hat as an unconscious way to harmonize with my home.

My beautiful chosen homeland.

And we locals find ways to spruce it up...

...in our own way.

And, when the sun does come out, even a little, it looks like this here.



And this.

So there!

I'm linking this up with Visible Monday on Not Dead Yet because, well, I think gray should be visible too.