It is a common question asked in a variety of settings. “What is your favorite color?” When asked of young children, I’ve seen purple and pink rise to the top. When asked in an ice breaker, get-to-know you situation, people can often make assumptions about another from their answer. Red? Bold and passionate. Blue? Perhaps introspective and moody. Color is a fascinating thing that makes for great conversation and eye pleasing awe.

Here in my part of the world we perhaps have a greater appreciation, even longing, for color. Spending as much time as we do with white…or white touched by dirty gray as winter holds us in its grip, we are starved for the experience of color. Oh, the cold and wind can get to us but there are always more layers that can be added for warmth. But color…that is a whole other matter.

Green. My favorite color is green. From childhood it has been, is, and will likely always be the color that makes my heart sing. These spring days that have been colder than usual have been a nasty tease with the color green. There were hints of it poking through the ground and then, wham! Snow. White again. The gift of green snatched from us in the blink of a frosty eye.

Last week I visited my sons in Seattle and we took the ferry out to Bainbridge Island. I never pass up a chance to ride a ferry! On the island we visited Bloedel Reserve, a beautiful setting of walking paths and more green than seems possible. Walking through the tall trees and the fields, I became so aware of the various shades of green that exist. Deep, rich green. Brilliant green we’ve named ‘kelly’. Pale,almost yellow, green which you can glimpse as buds begin to emerge. This sea of green was the intention of founder Prentice Bloedel who created this preserve and was also color blind. The acres are void of many flowering trees with an emphasis on green. Just green. I am not sure how colorblindness works but apparently green was something he was able to discern. And I was thankful for it.

Green is the color that says growth. It signals a hope that stimulates creativity and mirrors for us the possibility of new life. It is the color that surprises our tired, ice weary eyes when the season makes a turn. Wake up! Something wonderful is about to happen! It calls us to a wildness we can forget when our shoulders are pulled up to our ears and we forget to look into the lovely eyes of those we pass on our winter walk. Green can remind us of that child that still lives within us urging us outside to play.

Of course when it comes to the color green, we would expect poet Mary Oliver to weigh in:

Don’t you dare climb that tree
or even try, they said, or you will be
sent way to the hospital of the
very foolish, if not the other one.
And I suppose, considering my age,
it was fair advice.

But the tree is a sister to me, she
lives alone in a green cottage
high in the air and I know what
would happen, she’d clap her green hands,
she’d shake her green hair, she’d
welcome me.  Truly.

I try to be good but sometimes
a person just has to break out and
act like the wild and springy thing
one used to be.  It’s impossible not
to remember wild and not want to go back.

So if someday you can’t find me you might
look into that tree or—of course
it’s possible—under it.

Every day now, green is calling, inviting us to break out and remember. Wildness. Spring. Color.

I’m so, so ready and I hope you are, too.