green

The thing I love most about spring is the green. Not just any green, the FIRST green. The first green of spring is the freshest, brightest, most eager green you've ever seen. Even in Vancouver where there's green all year 'round, at this time of year I'm blown away by those first young leaves on the deciduous trees. The symphony of blossoming fruit trees on virtually all of Vancouver's streets is impressive, but its beauty is surpassed by the bold elegance of those young green leaves. Each leaf is slim and fragile in its newborn state, but the collective effect of all this new life is breathtaking and vast.

I think a lot of people take it for granted, as if it weren't a miracle of nature that this particular shade of green only appears for a matter of hours in the early spring. (They grow so fast, these eager little ones!) It makes me want to stop the seawall pedestrians in their tracks saying, "Look! Look! That green wasn't there yesteday! Do you see? Isn't it amazing? It's everywhere! All those little green leaves!" I'd be glad to be judged a lunatic if even one person REALLY noticed the colour.

I saw this green in January once. It was 2001 and I'd just arrived in Viet Nam. The rice shoots were just coming up in the paddy fields. It felt like home.