The Wrong Green

Barley, a dog, treads through grass. Close examination reveals that each blade of grass is coated in a thin layer of frost.

One of my clearest visual signals that I’m far from home in a different part of the world is that the plants are the wrong color. There’s greenery of some kind most everywhere, but between regional variations in local species and horticultural practice, the particular shade of green can vary quite dramatically. Occasionally, my own neighborhood will play this trick on me. Leaving for work early one unseasonably cold morning and finding that a chilling fog has dusted every place with a patina of frost had me feeling like I’d woken up in a different state, or maybe even inside a black-and-white photograph hand-colored in pale, penciled hues.