Passionate Tribute to... Green

Driving to work today and the last week has been bleak! The sky is gray, there was rain or fog, and nothing but brown landscape. This is the time of year I dread.

Up until Christmas, the darkness of the short daylight has been broken by cheerful Christmas lights on many homes, but now that Christmas is over, the lights are off or down. All is dormant. Snow is preferrable as it coveres the brown and reflects light, creating more brightness, but it is short lived, as it too eventually becomes brown and messy.

I have decided long ago that I could never live in a place without green trees. It is more than a desire, I must have a quantity of green in my view! Grass is good, but leaves are better. I enjoy watching them develop from small buds, to full sized leaves, through subtle shades of color, until they change color and drop. I watch for the last few leaves hanging on to the stems for dear life until they finally succumb and fall.

When I traveled to the West, I expected to see beautiful landscape, but I doubted I could ever live there because of the lack of leafy trees, thus the lack of green. I was pleasantly surprised to realize that although there may be few leafy green trees as I know them, there is no lack of green in the West. In most places the red ground is dotted with clumps of green shrubs and foliage. Put in the background the strickingly blue sky, and you have an amazing balance of color and the blue and green boldly stand out. I wish I could name some of the bush varieties, if I lived there I would learn them.

So, now I wait and struggle through this color void, until the first hints of Spring. I'll watch carefully the stems for subtle changes in color as a signal leaves are forming, some trees have buds that start to swell as the temperature climbs, all of which are signs, green is returning. Until then I can visit my florist and smell the freshness of flowers and enjoy their leaves and stems. Small compensation compared to the great outdoors, but it's all that available here. Think GREEN!