Green

Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.

Pedro Calderon de la Barca

I think green is my favourite colour, which is a bit sad because, in terms of clothes, over the years I have been persuaded to buy blue. My wardrobe is overwhelmingly blue I see. Which is also a nice colour but it's not green.

I have brown eyes and I think this is what first enticed me into buying green clothes. When I was young I had a lot. Now not so much, but I should lash out and go on a spending spree of green.

So I was thinking about green and how if you look around you - in the countryside anyway - here at home - it's almost all green. Well our grass is either bare earth at the moment, brown or covered in brown leaves. And I guess Australian trees have a greyish tinge to them, but overwhelmingly it's green that I see. Unless I look up at the sky of course. And in the city - not so much although the best cities - and Melbourne is one of them - have lots of green here and there.

And yet if you look at those beautiful pictures of earth from space, it's overwhelmingly blue and white.

Which is partly because of the oceans and partly something scientific to do with atmosphere (that I am not going to look into here). If you get closer in there are indeed some patches of green - apparently, Ireland, New Zealand and Scandinavia look green. Well so said one source, but I suspect they may have been a bit biased because even with massive deforestation I think the Amazon, the Congo and the Russian steppes probably look more green. Anyway my point is that from a distance there is no green.

And yet we rely on green for life. Well blue too. Blue for water, green for food, and air. We need those trees to drink the carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, we need to eat them, we need them to clothe and house us.

And emotionally speaking green is soothing - I think even Harry Potter said as much. There is nothing more relaxing than sitting somewhere comfortable (I'm old and just sitting on the grass is not always comfortable), and gazing at green fields, green gardens, green hills, even the green sea. For sometimes the sea is green. And there is nothing more life-enhancing that small shoots of green plants pushing their way to the surface.

There is a current craze for green food - kale, green tea, green drinks, etc. but really it's not new. I remember my mother telling me to eat up my greens. She even made my sister sit there over her unfinished greens once all the afternoon. It must have been the straw that broke the camel's back because my mother was not usually like that, but nevertheless I, at least, remember it vividly.

And it has to be said that green is not always good. Green for jealousy, green in relation to a sickly sheen, green meaning unknowing - sort of innocent but in a pejorative sense, green slime, green mucus, green algae - or is it blue - though algae of course are absolutely essential for the atmosphere - just not all of them - or not in the wrong places anyway. Urgh to all of that.

There are of course an infinite number of shades of green - just as there are of any colour - even white. I think my preference is for the duller ones - in terms of clothes - but brighter green in terms of scenery. And it shades into blue at one end, yellow at the other - even white. It's fluid like all colour. Like life.