July 7 - Fifty Shades of Green

Last week we drove our friend, Jo, to an appointment. She sat in the back looking out the car window. It was a beautiful day and one of the few times that Jo had been out on the road since the onset of the pandemic. As we drove along I heard her say, “Have you ever noticed just how many different shades of green there are?”

Truthfully, I had not! When we are whipping along in the car, I am lucky if I can discern a tree from a horse or a large rock. On some days and in some lights, I find it difficult to see the horizon and the difference between land and sky. Colours...well, they belong in the realm of people who have more vision than I do.

I remember at the beginning of my sight loss journey, I was trying to explain to a friend what I could and couldn’t see. My friend asked, “Well, can you see colours?”

“Oh, yes” I replied gamely. “For instance, I can see that you are wearing a green sweater.”

My answer was followed by a brief silence before my friend informed me that the sweater she was wearing was blue, not green at all.

I know now that I do have problems telling the difference between blue and green, or black and brown, or grey and...well, you get the drift! Almost all muted colours are difficult. Perhaps that is why I like primary colours. I like to wear bright vivid colours myself. I also like it when Lyle wears a brightly coloured shirt or sweater so that I have a better chance of picking him out in a crowd.

In spite of all this, I did take Jo’s comment to heart and next time I went walking, I resolved to pay more attention to what I was seeing. As I walked down the river trail, I stopped to look more closely at my surroundings. Indeed, when I looked with greater care, I could see that there was a difference in the shades of green. I could see that there was a difference in the shades of the trees and the green of the grass. I could see that the evergreens were a dark, almost black green. The grass was brighter and in some places almost a lime green, while in other places a muted mossy green. Some of the green leaves on the ground were already tinged with yellow.  I tried walking the same trail at different times of day and noticed that sunlight or shadow also made a difference to what I was seeing.

So, many shades of green – perhaps not fifty, but so many shades that it would be difficult to count them all. My favourite of all the greens was the close up view I had of the milky green of some sage bushes. I like this spot on the trail particularly because of the scent of the sage in the late spring.  

 There is a picture with this post of the milky green of the sage.

Milky green coloured sage bush