My sister's hell had ended. My mini utopia was over. Middle school State side versus High School. The odds, I must say were in my favor from the first bus ride when I sat behind some sophomores talking about soaps and my sister was scarred for life. We were leaving our respective educations in America and returning to Pakistan. We landed in Karachi. The dust. The memories. The delight at favorite food, crazy transport, familiar noises and just being back to what we called home. But it was brown. We left summer come fall in the land of the thousand lakes to land in a desert.
I carried a green crayon in my pocket and wanted to cry. The very first time we had landed five years before I had stepped in a huge wet cow patty. I was ten. Not a high moment in my life. This time I was older. Wiser. I missed the cow patty but noticed things I had never noticed before. The lack luster plants, trees, anything green. I am not a naturalist unless have a natural knack for killing plants counts, it seems to come naturally without effort. My track record as a failure gardener of any kind does not mitigate my love for green, for nature, for trees. If I was to return perhaps my eyes would be more perceptive. More careful to gaze at wonder at the flying buttresses God made but in those days the brown seemed to extend to the ends of the earth. I began a love affair with bougainvillaeas which seem to flower through any heat. (though I think I managed to kill the one on my balcony with over watering)
Green was the days off my dad would snatch and we would flee to an orchid outside the city and sit and drink green. Drink it till we could return.
Green was the mountain air, fresh and clean and sharp. In the mountains the greens almost outdid Ireland (not really) but they were there but so was the cold. Only the wealthy could survive the cold. Green was for the wealthy.
Green was the color of cleanness. Growth. Beauty.
Green meant rest, refreshment, cool, air, and life. I learned in Pakistan the purity of green. The value of green. The beauty of green. The restfulness of green.
I carried a green crayon in my pocket and wanted to cry. The very first time we had landed five years before I had stepped in a huge wet cow patty. I was ten. Not a high moment in my life. This time I was older. Wiser. I missed the cow patty but noticed things I had never noticed before. The lack luster plants, trees, anything green. I am not a naturalist unless have a natural knack for killing plants counts, it seems to come naturally without effort. My track record as a failure gardener of any kind does not mitigate my love for green, for nature, for trees. If I was to return perhaps my eyes would be more perceptive. More careful to gaze at wonder at the flying buttresses God made but in those days the brown seemed to extend to the ends of the earth. I began a love affair with bougainvillaeas which seem to flower through any heat. (though I think I managed to kill the one on my balcony with over watering)
Green was the days off my dad would snatch and we would flee to an orchid outside the city and sit and drink green. Drink it till we could return.
Green was the mountain air, fresh and clean and sharp. In the mountains the greens almost outdid Ireland (not really) but they were there but so was the cold. Only the wealthy could survive the cold. Green was for the wealthy.
Green was the color of cleanness. Growth. Beauty.
Green meant rest, refreshment, cool, air, and life. I learned in Pakistan the purity of green. The value of green. The beauty of green. The restfulness of green.
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