OK, let’s talk about Wimbledon. Last week was the start of Wimbledon and I have to say I’m always fascinated by this tournament.
Being a defiant immigrant, daughter and New Yorker, it always astounded me that the Wimbledon people got away with demanding that players wear only white to the event. And if I’m honest, WTF was what I thought when I first discovered Wimbledon’s requirement.
But now, the more mature and Feng Shui me thinks about Wimbledon more in terms of environment. When I first switched on my first Wimbledon match and I saw that many spectators mirrored this attire, I thought: “Everyone looks so fancy and put together. There must be something very exclusive about this because everyone is wearing white, like they are part of a club.”
All my life, I felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere. I was always on my own and had to figure things out by myself. I was a survivor, always staying in motion, so as not to get caught by the craziness and unrelenting demands of life, real or imagined.
So there I was one afternoon, watching these chic people, mostly clad in all-white, looking very relaxed and amused. I was like, “What’s going on here? I want some of that.”
At the time, I didn’t know at all what “that” was. Now I know. I wanted belonging. I wanted calm. I wanted permission to relax, to enjoy whatever I wanted and be joyful. And most importantly, I wanted to not feel guilty about not working, producing, and simply enjoying a hobby for the sake of enjoying it.
You may know that I’m a huge tennis fan. I don’t play tennis and that may be a surprise to some. In 2003, my dad insisted I buy a TV. Because there was really no internet or cable TV back then, or at least I didn’t know about it lol, sometimes I would spend my very few leisure moments lying on my bed and flipping channels. When there was nothing to watch, I would watch tennis if it was on. The sound of the ball being hit back and forth calmed my nervous system. And that’s how I got interested in tennis.
When I finally researched why Wimbledon requires white-only attire for players, what surprised me wasn’t the reason (sweat stains of all things). What surprised me was that one simple rule could change the feeling of an entire place. The color white allows your eyes to rest in a weird way. Too much white can be weirdly blinding, but with the green grass, it balances out. Green grass just feels like ahhh.
Seeing Wimbledon made me realize I have a complicated relationship with rules because I grew up in a home that was just based on rules. My personality didn’t have the room to crystallize or expand. After living on my own, the expansiveness of the world and living in different cultures has allowed me to really test who I was and see what really mattered to me.
Then I saw Naomi Osaka walk onto Centre Court just a few days ago in her now-famous white Japanese-inspired creation, realized by Tokyo-based designer Hana Yagi. Naomi walked on center court and with goosebumps on my arms, I was like,
“Yes girl.”
“You do you.”
“Show them.”
“Show YOU.”
I was proud of her statement, her courage, her creativity and her sass. It made me realize that you can respect rules and traditions and still find creative ways that feel true to you. And be a bit irreverent. Maybe weird, archaic traditions will always exist. But maybe it’s still possible to show up in white outfits (or whatever the occasion dictates) and quietly declare, “This is me. And yes, I’ve arrived.”
It was only when I moved to Paris that I realized that what I wanted wasn’t just belonging. It was a belonging that allowed me to stay fiercely me.
Maybe belonging isn’t following blindly. Maybe belonging is finding the true you while being in the group, but also allowing the true you to add to the group. Maybe the traditions worth keeping are the ones that make us feel like we belong, light us up, bring us joy and allow us to be ourselves.
It made me wonder… where in your life are you trying so hard to belong that you’ve stopped being and bringing yourself to the group?
The older I get, the less interested I am in fitting in and the more interested I am in feeling relaxed and authentically me. Being seen and appreciated for me. Quirks and all.
