Caroline Patterson spoke and gave a workshop at the Whitefish Community Library last month. She had us start with a 10-minute warm-up prompt: Pick a color or a food and riff on that. The idea was to go into detail on something. I chose a color that opened up a flood of associations, memories, and senses all associated with one person. And surprisingly, it was emotionally intense for me. I played a little more with this today. It was a fun and enjoyable exercise to generate deposits to my idea bank. Thanks to Erika P. and Claudia B. for encouraging me to share what came up for me:
The green, soft, fuzzy leaves of the cheery yellow zinnias in her garden.
The green grass stains on the knees of her faded Wranglers.
The lime-flavored green Jello-O Knox blocks housing crushed pineapple are suspended in space on the CorningWare dessert bowl before me.
The delicate green tendrils of the sweet peas reached and wound themselves tightly up the bamboo trellis. Their pods and light pink flowers were so pleasing to me. I remember how she always called me “sweet pea.”
“Hold still, sweet pea. I’ve almost got it,” she said. The sweat pooled between my shins and the green vinyl sofa cushions on a summer evening. I lay prone with my face buried in a pillow. Her left hand firmly held my foot, and her right hand skillfully worked the sewing needle into the skin surrounding the splinter of the wooden fence lodged in the center of my foot.
The green sand alongside the streams of blue, yellow, orange, and red. A mystery and miracle of colored sand on the oak-shaded concrete. Her sand art glass bottle project.
The green grass cuttings steam themselves in a pile for the compost.
The small green palm tree was now nestled amongst a ring of brown dried oak and pine needle mulch in her brother’s yard. It was a freshly planted tree, a tender expression of her affection. Her love language is service.
The green bodies and bellies of the tiny tree frogs are drawn to the bugs in the light of the kitchen window on a humid summer night. We are delighted.
She knows the names and the origins of all the green ones in her yard. By origin, I mean she knows where she bought it, who gave it to her, or who she traded another plant with to get it—fifty years of green friends with this land.
The elegant green leaves of the banana trees dance in the breeze of an early summer afternoon oncoming storm. There are too many to count in this dense stand next to the horse’s grave beneath the magnificent oak.
The green blossoms of the Bells of Ireland. “Those were your dad’s favorite flowers,” she said. Where and how he was first introduced to them? Could it have been in Michigan before the age of 4? It was likely in a gardening magazine. She keeps a bouquet of artificial ones on his headstone except when she can find them fresh in the grocery store. After he left his body, she planted Bells of Ireland seeds in the south-facing front plant bed. Technically, they are not supposed to grow in Zone 9a. Lo and behold! We were all surprised when they rose from beneath the Japanese Yew tree.
“I just couldn’t stand it. I know that Camellia bush is on their property, not ours, but the vines were overtaking it. I went in there and cleaned them out. It took me 2 hours. It looks so much better now.”
We collected the green-gray lichen from the rain soaked ground amongst the live oak and pine forest. Once dried, these would become treetops for my brother’s scale train track and cityscape.
Among cupped, firm green leaves, she sits 12 feet above the fire pit, perched upon a limb of the live oak, her Stihl chainsaw on an extension pole ready to go. The broken, dead, or damaged branches need pruning to prepare the tree canopy for hurricane season.
The heavy green polyester and vinyl-lined blinds on wooden rings hung between the dining room and the enclosed patio’s sliding glass doors, a room dedicated to the green ones.
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