SHADES OF GREEN

Let’s be honest…. Indiana is lacking in the scenery department. Before you get all defensive on me, my fellow Hoosiers, let’s just review a couple of facts:

Indiana has no ocean (no, Lake Michigan does not count).

Indiana has no mountains (no, Brown County does not count).

I am not sure that this bothers everyone. It bothers me. Deeply.

Or at least it used to…. Allow me to explain.

Perhaps my feelings can be traced back to my childhood (as feelings often can). Every year upon return from vacation, whether it was from the pristine, white beaches of St. Augustine, the multihued phenomenon of the Grand Canyon, or the lofty Black Hills of South Dakota, my Mom would say flatly, “I feel like throwing rocks at Indiana”.

By the time I reached my twenties, I had decided these shortcomings in my home state were grounds for relocation. About that time I visited Acadia National Park in Maine. As I sat on that rocky shore, staring out at the frothy white breakers of the Atlantic, the wind tossing my hair and singing a song in my ear, I knew I had found my way home. When I got back from vacation I wrote to the Bangor Chamber of Commerce about the availability of graphic design jobs in the area. I was all set.

But it was not to be.

Life intruded on my plans to escape lackluster Indiana. Life in the miraculous form of marriage, family, children, and cherished friends; my roots in Indiana now run very, very deep, and I thank God for that.

I also now recall something else my Mom used to say – “Indiana is kind of pretty in its own way”.

Indiana does indeed have its own kind of beauty, and never is it as apparent as it is in the month of September. It is a green place; every shade imaginable is represented in the lush vegetation of its parks, fields, and suburban backyards.

Grass green, emerald, moss, olive, pine. Aquamarine, jade, lime green, apple green and chartreuse. Tea green, sea green, and asparagus green.

Beautiful.

And sometimes when the cumulonimbus clouds pile up on the horizon, the effect is an awful lot like a mountain range. Sometimes I pretend it is.