My kindergarten teacher (nearly 50 years ago) insisted that we use our orange crayon when we colored people. It never made sense to me. I’d never seen any orange people, and I knew that not all people were the same color anyway.

Years later I heard a college student complaining that her art professor told her she needed to use blue in her painting of a chocolate chip cookie. Blue in a cookie! Yes. Bits of blue help create the illusion of depth, shadow and roundness.

The third story that braided with the other two to make White is for Blueberry is a tale from India.Four brothers are sent to find a particular tree, then return and describe it. It’s a long journey to the tree and back, but each son does as requested. But the sons are soon arguing because they each describe the tree differently. It was, indeed, the same tree. But each son saw the tree in a different season and so different specifics to describe. Virtually, everything is like that. For example, what do I look like? The answer keeps changing day after week after month after year.

More and more it seems to be that the most interesting questions are those that have many accurate answers. And, if we’re not sure, asking more questions like how, what, where and when can help us find the wisest answer for that particular moment.