Way, way off-Broadway
I love these short days. Really. My morning drive to the station is dim, gray and white-knuckled.
Khaki-colored fields. Photo: Jonathan Brown
It’s impossible to tell what’s on the side of the road until I’m right on it. The tan grass and dark brown thickets are just the right height to look like deer. So, every clump of roadside brush looks like it’s about to launch itself in front of (or into) my car.
It rarely turns out that way, thankfully, but the opposite happens sometimes, too. A deer, or a whole string of them, look like brush until running away.
The flurries morph into powdered sugar and the first pink of sunrise mix to make it seem like I’m driving into a jelly donut.
And there are dozens of other fantastic sights. Some, like the stretched out khaki-colored fields, take me I don’t know where, but way beyond North Country roads. Until something appears ahead, like a car. But, in my 20-minute drive to the station the other day, I saw—wait for it—three cars. I counted.
That’s the thing about this place. It’s a bit of a performance artist. And I have time to watch the show. It’s way, way off-Broadway, but it’s every day and sometimes best on these dark days before the stage is fully lit.
I love the colors. It’s a subtle pallette, strong on soft browns and a million shades of grey, and it’s changeable…a flash of sunshine brings out the red twigs and green pines. Rain wakes up the colors of the lichens, and a rare bright sunset turns the tan grasses gold.
Remember also that there is that other time of year in which the greens are endless and almost unbroken.
“My morning drive to the station is dim, gray and white-knuckled.”
Perhaps you might try getting up and on the road a bit earlier so you do not have to drive at “white-knuckle speeds” toward your place of employ.