Colors of Home

I feel safe here: protected.

I know that many people love southern California for it's cloudless blue skies, it's endless supply of sun, it's laid-back friendliness, but not me- I always felt exposed there, vulnerable, even as a child. I hated the way everything was bright and in your face, the way everyone notices everyone because they're always hoping to See Someone, and especially the way my shadow was clearly etched for anyone to capture (it is possible I read Peter Pan one time too often).

When we moved here, to this cold gray place by the sea, I finally began to felt at ease in my own skin. My sister calls it oppressive, but I find it liberating. The skies hang low, so low you might reach up and touch them for comfort, or luck. The misting rains envelop me as I walk, allowing me to move with muffled footsteps, blissfully anonymous. Best of all, I can keep my shadow my own.

I like to go down to the water, the dark, gray-green water, so different from the bright blue ocean of my youth. These waters know how to keep secrets- sink them deep, keep them silent. No on interrupts me here- it's just me, and the waves, and the many unspoken things we have witnessed. The sea birds cry out to us, "Tell! Tell! Tell!" but we never will.

The forests, too, know how to keep secrets, keep them hidden deep within their foliage. The leaves are a shade of black-green you'd never see in California- the sunlight wouldn't allow such a color to exist. It would fade it away until it couldn't conceal a thing, a washed-out memory of a color. But here, where the sun is nothing more than a briefly tolerated guest, here that color flourishes, pure and dark as the underside of a dream. It is the perfect setting for the raindrops that embellish the leaves like tiny liquid mirrors; sometimes I get as close to them as I can, to watch the world quiver in reverse. I catch sight of my own distorted reflection and I smile- finally I have found myself.


(Silvered Green)