Growing to Love Green
Mom's favourite colour is green. It has been for as long as I can remember. There was never a question about which colour to pick when choosing or making a gift for her or which sheet of construction paper to transform into her birthday card. It was very helpful for us kids when we wanted to make something special even more so. Grandma was more of a mystery. When asked to declare it, she'd say her favourite was "sky blue-pink with purple polka dots." Although that sounds a lot like lavender to someone learning to mix colours, I'm sure it was just her way of saying any colour we chose would be just right. I still have no idea if she really preferred one colour over another or if, like me, she tended to love what suited the moment. Then again, her car, the one she had for the 17 years I knew her, was a deep forest green.
Mom's love of green was sometimes puzzling to me as a child. It seemed like such a plain colour, lacking the warmth or excitement of red or orange, not as calm or soft as blue, not exotic like purple or gold. Green was just steady and quiet like brown. In fact, some of her favourite shades tended to be on the brown side, dull or olive-coloured. Green was just part of the landscape. We had always lived in places that were green and brown: a world of brown earth and green grasses, trees and underbrush with leaves of every shade of green, frogs and snakes and bugs designed to blend into that palette. Even the lake was greener than childhood drawings would assume.
I remember being about four when Mom sent us out into the green wilderness of the back yard to hunt for bright yellow dandelions she could make into dandelion wine. My older sister and I filled the big aluminum mixing bowl several times as we made our way through the tall grass between the house and the woods. Later, they plowed much of that span into dark brown, and Mom showed us how to plant the seeds of future salads. Each different vegetable had its own way of growing, preferences she taught us as we moved from row to row. She knew which plants made good neighbours and which might protect the others from bugs or rabbits. As Spring rolled into Summer, the green overtook the brown again, and her garden thrived.
Much of our yard was vegetable garden for all the time we lived at that house, and with Mom's guidance, we also came to know most of the wild plants that surrounded it, too. When we moved in with Grandma, there were new plants to meet, rosebushes and rhubarb and peonies crawling with ants that helped them bloom. Our yard there was soon transformed into the same sort of bounty our old yard had been. Sneaking tomatoes, snow peas or dirty carrots for snacks ws typical Summer fun. Mom had to know, but how could she mind?
Now every year about this time, I start to yearn to play in the dirt again. My eyes start searching for hints of green. Though Winter seems to have been sliding further along the year, starting late and pushing Spring off its usual schedule, I can still pick up those early promises of the green to come. There are pale yellow-green shoots poking up where I planted the garlic last Fall. Sturdy emerald blades are breaking free of the cold dark earth in the more sheltered areas, and there's a lively brightness to the buds on the lilacs in the yard.
For now, I have to take joy in these early signs and tend my egg carton full of tomato seedlings just like Mom did every chilly Spring (and still does.) Soon, though, I know my world will be filled with green again, and as the violets start to bloom, I'll have a little of that sky blue-pink to go with it, too.
Mom's love of green was sometimes puzzling to me as a child. It seemed like such a plain colour, lacking the warmth or excitement of red or orange, not as calm or soft as blue, not exotic like purple or gold. Green was just steady and quiet like brown. In fact, some of her favourite shades tended to be on the brown side, dull or olive-coloured. Green was just part of the landscape. We had always lived in places that were green and brown: a world of brown earth and green grasses, trees and underbrush with leaves of every shade of green, frogs and snakes and bugs designed to blend into that palette. Even the lake was greener than childhood drawings would assume.
I remember being about four when Mom sent us out into the green wilderness of the back yard to hunt for bright yellow dandelions she could make into dandelion wine. My older sister and I filled the big aluminum mixing bowl several times as we made our way through the tall grass between the house and the woods. Later, they plowed much of that span into dark brown, and Mom showed us how to plant the seeds of future salads. Each different vegetable had its own way of growing, preferences she taught us as we moved from row to row. She knew which plants made good neighbours and which might protect the others from bugs or rabbits. As Spring rolled into Summer, the green overtook the brown again, and her garden thrived.
Much of our yard was vegetable garden for all the time we lived at that house, and with Mom's guidance, we also came to know most of the wild plants that surrounded it, too. When we moved in with Grandma, there were new plants to meet, rosebushes and rhubarb and peonies crawling with ants that helped them bloom. Our yard there was soon transformed into the same sort of bounty our old yard had been. Sneaking tomatoes, snow peas or dirty carrots for snacks ws typical Summer fun. Mom had to know, but how could she mind?
Now every year about this time, I start to yearn to play in the dirt again. My eyes start searching for hints of green. Though Winter seems to have been sliding further along the year, starting late and pushing Spring off its usual schedule, I can still pick up those early promises of the green to come. There are pale yellow-green shoots poking up where I planted the garlic last Fall. Sturdy emerald blades are breaking free of the cold dark earth in the more sheltered areas, and there's a lively brightness to the buds on the lilacs in the yard.
For now, I have to take joy in these early signs and tend my egg carton full of tomato seedlings just like Mom did every chilly Spring (and still does.) Soon, though, I know my world will be filled with green again, and as the violets start to bloom, I'll have a little of that sky blue-pink to go with it, too.
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