Why do I write that?
Immersed in, or surrounded by green, I have always found this colour extremely difficult to use. There are so many greens.
A painter friend once wrote me a note on how to mix the different greens, I have found her words very useful.
Although more recently I looked down at my best and only pair of good shoes to find that they were damp with the dew and covered with recently cut grass.
Brilliant emerald green against a background of burnt umber. A wonderful colour combination and who would have thought that except for the Creator when he or she built the world with a dark background of earth or rock and the brilliant addition of greens melting to yellow or even going towards red or black.
Then there is the lake, not a natural lake, but a lake trapped by the dam.
The water reflects the hills or perhaps some would call them mountains, the water reflects the green or is clear with clouds floating across its surface.
In Jamaica, I remember the green-blue of the sea, I would use the word turquoise. I learned that this colour is because of the high amount of calcium carbonate dissolved in the water. I assume this comes from the coral reefs surrounding the island that was once my home, if not my continuing spiritual home.
Green, how green were those hills around our home. I would sit on the verandah and attempt to paint them as the clouds cast their ever-changing shadows on the treetops and pastures. The John Crow Mountains, faded from green to blue in the distance. The grass was tall in those pastures, bright light green, the edges sharp as swords after the rain. The surface of the ponds were light green with algae and the red cows, up to their flanks drinking in the deepest part of the water.
Those were the green days.
The green days that I thought would never end.
The green days without a phone or the Internet.
Some mornings spent riding out with the men when they moved the cattle from one pasture to the other. The men calling out their special musical “Goo go c-o-o-o-o-w” up, down, up and a long sound. The swish of the long grass as the cows pushed by entering a new pasture. Me on my chestnut filly under the cool of the dark green leaved hog plum trees branching over the narrow lanes dividing the pastures. Reaching up to gather the sweet yellow plums to suck on as I followed the men. The headman on his brown and white patterned horse, always attentive so that he could warn me if I was riding too close to the bull.
Those were the green days, days when I struggled to create the green in front of me because I had neither the patience or the skill.
Now, though, is different. I am again ready to pull out my paints and sit outside and try to capture green.
Meditatively, quietly, absorbed.