On Being Pale. Really, Really Pale

Spring has sprung in Minnesota. This annual exodus from our months-long tortured and frozen winter captivity is marked by frequent sightings of exposed skin, re-introducing oneself to neighbors, and long lines at home and garden stores. In our house the first sighting of a hose sends the girls running for swimsuits. Only in springtime in Minnesota is 60 degrees appropriate weather for running through the sprinkler.

Warm weather also triggers other conversations in our house:

• The bakery is discussed frequently by our girls as an idea for where to head on our bike rides.
• My wife scolds, castigates, and otherwise pleas to make sure that dirty shoes stay outside.
• Our girls insist that they won't be cold with shorts and tank tops and pout when rebutted by us.
• We clarify with the girls that sidewalk chalk is indeed for the sidewalk, not the house, trees, cars, or their bodies. Apparently we haven't been clear enough on this one.  Long sigh......

Of all the springtime conversations that we have my favorite is my wife's annual lament over how pale she is. The truth is that our whole family is equally as pale, but she has a particular aversion to our pasty, creamy, and completely-lacking-in-melanin skin tone. My youngest daughter seems to have picked up on this as well as last summer she complained that her skin was "too bright". 

Each spring our family becomes a luminous beacon of the changing seasons for the whole neighborhood as we go on walks. This all too recognizable reminder of winter's long stranglehold over our skin-covering wardrobes is unfortunately something that clings to our skin long after others have taken on a summery complexion. I have been called "albino" on more than one occasion and have often thought my skin to be more opaque and translucent than any real actual color.

Anyway, to encourage my pale partner in parenting I wanted to take few minutes to extol the virtues of being so shockingly white.

• Our blood vessels are really easy to find for blood draws because our skin does nothing to hide them. Nurses love us.
• Wood ticks are easy to spot in spring, standing out as coal black specks on a pristine, shimmery white canvas. 
• We can get excited about the sunburn that we get the first time it is sunny and warmer than 50 degrees. Most people have to wait several more weeks or months until it hits the  mid-70's.
• Whatever tiny amount of color we might have picked up over the summer is lost almost immediately in the fall leaving us well prepared to become camouflaged with the first snowfall.
• Our wardrobe choices are easier because so many colors simply look horrible with our odd skin tone. Imagine if we could wear a full palette of colors. Talk about choice overload!
• We can embarrass our children by forcing them to wear those ridiculous (and completely unnecessary with sunscreen!) swimshirts. Our girls are likely going to be nerds anyways so we might as well start them early.
• The dizzying variety of ever-so-slightly-different shades of white that are available as paint colors are all very familiar. The differences between mother-of-pearl, white dove, lily of the valley, ivory white, cloud white, cotton balls, and paper white are well known to us. This blog post on 20 great shades of white paint could double as a map of the variations our skin tones take on over the course of a year.

While we might be the palest family we know, I am sure that we are not the only ones who have spent time laughing about how ridiculously pale they are. Some of you may have your own ridiculous list extolling/lampooning your lack of or abundance of melanin. At the end of the day we remain grateful for the unique way God made us and recognize the beauty of the full spectrum of human color. It is a wonder to behold the glorious variation among humans and know that each and every person is created in His image and each in their own way reflects a bit of His glory, beauty, and creativity.