I have always disliked the drab brownness of winter. Fresh snowfalls are beautiful, but they soon fade into the muddy brown sea of winter. Recently I discovered that my nephew’s wife loves brown in all its varieties. It caused me to stop and take a second look at brown. Me, who is passionate about green. The color of life. The color of spring and new growth. Not the brown death of fall and winter.
This winter, like all winters in the past eight years, I walked by the window enclosed courtyard at the center of our elementary school and felt the sadness of the dead and dying browns: hydrangeas, tall grasses, various bushes, leaves and flowers. It’s a shame that a school courtyard is at its prettiest during the summer when most of us are on vacation.
In late summer we enjoy the hydrangea and a few remaining flowers and the miniature trees for a short time before they fade into brown. Then once again in the spring as the tulips and daffodils bloom and the trees and hydrangea bud into that gorgeous green. But during this in between season of winter, I have looked out with a sigh and then glanced upward hoping to at least see some color in the blueness of the sky, but too often that too is an accompanying winter gray.
This year I have been putting extra effort into finding beauty in unexpected places and as I walked by the hydrangea filled courtyard for the umpteenth time one day I realized that my nephew’s wife had been seeing a beauty that I have spent my life overlooking. Brown in all its lovely shades.
Please enjoy the beautiful brownness of our courtyard in all its glory.
130. School’s center courtyard.
131. Brown floral tones of winter.
132. Homemade spaghetti and green peas.
133. Fresh garlic.
134. Hooded sweaters.
135. Cool nippy air that produces rosy cheeks.
136. Brisk energizing walks.
137. Walking the dog.
138. Muscle tone that develops from walking the dog.
139. Shopping in an almost empty grocery store at midnight.
140. Actually singing rather than just humming under my breath while I grocery shop because the store is practically empty.
141. My husband making it home safely thorough a treacherous snowstorm.
142. The refreshing gloriousness of all things GREEN.
143. Laundry that’s done and put away.
144. A husband for a chef or a chef for a husband? Either way.
145. Meeting someone who speaks German.
146. A squirrel’s black walnut picnic.
147. Bare tree branches.
148. . . .
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