Gray by any other name -- is still gray

I am sitting here at my desk in the heart of the West Coast Rain Forest. It has rained and Rained and RAINED, day after day for more days than I can count right now. I feel as if I have seen only two colours lately -- the omnipresent gray of the sky and the brilliant emerald green of all the freshly drenched, new growth on trees, shrubs, and grasses. In a way, the intense "wow!" of the green balances out the "ho-hum"of the all pervading gray of the sky. 

I hate to "pine" for something else than what exists in the Present Moment, but I found myself looking wistfully at this photo of our barrel of dry grasses taken one August. On that summer day it was sunny, hot, and dry. I think it even might have been too hot that day. I realize I can't quite recall that sunny, hot, dry feeling anymore. Today, like yesterday and the day before, I have been feeling cold with all these long days of rain. Three weeks ago back in May, in an optimistic mood, I turned off the heat in our home; but today, I finally gave up hope of an early summer and turned the heat back on. I hate to admit it but I can't put my turtle-neck sweaters away yet for the season, so they co-exist in squished quarters with my summer clothes in the closet. I don't want to complain about the weather so, instead, I have tried some distraction techniques.

At first, as a way to idly occupy my mind during this unprecedented precipitation, I started to think of a new shade of gray each day: gray, dark gray, gloomy gray, grizzly gray, and then back to gray, again. But this tack, frankly, was depressing me. As a result, the last few days I decided to reverse the trend and think of uplifting words, such as: glorious gray, grand gray, gorgeous gray, and generous gray.  The growing list of positive adjectives helped me -- a bit -- by making me to look more at the subtle and complex variations of gray; I am grateful for that new perspective. The disappointing news is, however, I am running out of inspirational adjectives for the many shades gray that can be experienced here during the rainy season. And we seem to have more rainy days in the forecast.



So, please, help me in reclaiming and renaming this drab colour we call gray.  I would love to have your "gray" suggestions to add to my list and keep me inspired until the clouds become emptied of all their rain and leave us to bath in sunshine once again.

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Photo credits: Photos by Jessica at Oceanwood.

Oceanwood Chronicles, copyright 2008 - Jessica at Oceanwood. Creative commons attribution, non-commercial sharing only (translation: feel free to quote me in context or use this entry but please always credit me for my work, thanks.) http://oceanwood.blogspot.com/