Love for Green

“What’s his favorite color?” 

I don’t exactly remember why I asked that. I guess kids are always curious, and I suppose I wanted to know more about this baby boy I would be living with for the summer. 

“We think it’s green,” my brother answered. “He always points to it when it's on the TV.” 

It seemed that his son wanted to prove that was true, because seconds later he marked the screen with his greasy toddler finger. Cartoon characters ran across a flat plane of grass, something Vincent immediately recognized as interesting, something he wanted. 

I didn’t have a favorite color back then. It was always changing, because I couldn’t seem to pick just one. I think I was so indecisive because there is such a large variety of colors, and each one represented something different to me. When I think of this particular part of my childhood, all that fills my mind are the colors of my grandparents’ house in Shelbyville, Kentucky. My memory defines this time in my life not by the drastic changes I was experiencing, but by what I was leaving behind. I loved yellow because it reminded me of the flowers that would call out to me from a sea of green that surrounded their house. I loved brown because it reminded me of the acorns I would find under comforting trees that lined their fence. It reminded me of the amber highlights in the black fur of their dog, Coco. it reminded me of the sticks stuck in my hair after a long day of adventuring outside. I loved orange because it reminded me of the carrots my grandmother used to grow. It reminded me of the beatles I would find resting on the porch. It reminded me of the sunsets I would watch from this little piece of land, Coco beside me, both of us reflecting on the journey we took that day. The land that surrounded my grandparents’ house gave me endless freedom. My imagination didn't have to do the heavy lifting, because there was already so much to explore around me. I would later find myself running around in the gates of airports, pretending I was back there, collecting the prettiest flowers, the weirdest-looking sticks, the most colorful bugs. How could I have possibly picked a favorite color with all that surrounded me, a little girl, swallowed up by the beauty of nature? Swallowed up by the beauty of green? 

Years later, once Vincent reached the age I was during those times, my parents and I took him with us on a trip back to Kentucky. We were taking back the final pieces of ourselves we had left there, locked away in a small storage unit I hadn’t seen since we left. My grandparents’ old home was already sold to the man that owned the rest of the land around it. I’ve always wondered what he turned it into. I’ve always secretly hoped it’s stayed the same, frozen in time since the last second I stepped on its grounds. I have never been back to see it. 

We spent our small trip in my uncle’s house, where Vincent got to finally see a horizon that wasn’t taken up by mountains, fields of grass that weren’t fake or dying, and maple trees that surrounded almost everything. He finally got to see green. True green. 

Even though the time he spent in Kentucky was short, and he was so young when he spent it, it impacted him in ways that I did not know I was hoping for. A couple of years later, on a drive through the desert, where we both now live, Vincent reveals this impact to me. He and I are talking with my mother about what he wants to do when he grows up. We don’t say it out loud, but both my mother and I are hoping that he isn’t planning to stay in the Coachella Valley for his entire life. 

“I don’t know, I just… I just want to live somewhere green, like Kentucky.” 

I made eye contact with my mom through the rearview mirror, and I could tell she was smiling. At that moment, I beamed at his desire to leave, but what I really should have been celebrating was my nephew’s desire to be surrounded by nature. Ironically, the small towns in the valley seem to have gotten rid of more of their nature than the city of Louisville, Kentucky. The desert has so much to offer, and yet we have to drive an hour to a national park to experience it. I used to find deer on my front porch in the mornings before school. Now, I’m met only with a driveway. 

Vincent, at the age of seven, understood this lack. Years later he still asks to visit Kentucky again. He remembers his time there just as clearly as I remember my time in Shelbyville. He remembers green, and he longs for it. He longs for it as I long for the forests, the fields, and the hills back at the first home I can remember. Something deep inside us keeps us tethered to that deep connection with nature. 

After leaving Kentucky, I moved to Windsor, England, and spent every summer for four years in the Coachella Valley. Following that, I moved there permanently. Having lived here for seven years now, I can say with full certainty that I have always felt detached from nature here. I just can’t seem to connect with this environment like I could with Kentucky’s. I have a strong feeling that it’s because the desert runs from its own nature. I can’t connect to the desert if it’s entirely full of concrete. 

Sand sits in a thick layer on top of every building instead of on the ground. We make desperate attempts to replicate other environments. We pump rivers of water into the grass of massive golf courses, because grass cannot live on its own here. We create makeshift ponds, we send over ducks, and place them in country clubs where more grass is struggling to stay alive. Where I can see the desert is in bits and pieces in between these structures. In unkempt, dirty squares of sand that no company has taken a hold of yet. On the average day, I can only see the beauty of the desert from the window of a car, staring at the massive mountains. Staring at the wildflowers that grow in the sand whenever it rains. The only places I get to see green are places where it’s forced, or places where it’s unappreciated. Terrifyingly, this little green that the desert allows me gets smaller and smaller year after year. 

When I visited Palm Springs in the summers of my earlier childhood, it was the hottest place I had ever been in. That’s all I characterized it with back then - heat, palm trees, and everyday spent in the pool. Although the weather meant I got to have endless fun in the water, it got unbearable at times. In Windsor, where I spent the school year, my family and I considered 60 degrees Fahrenheit a sunny day. When the weather hit that mark, we would make sure to spend the day outside. Here, the sun punished me with weather in the 90s every single day, for the entire summer. Being in a desert, this heat was not only incredibly hot, but incredibly dry. The sky fully resembled a sea of blue - there was not a single cloud in sight. I would’ve taken the humidity of any other environment over the dry, unforgiving heat of this place. I just wanted to walk downtown for ten minutes without feeling like I was getting cooked alive. However, my wish would never be granted. My desire for some peace outside of this heat would only be intensified. 

Over the years, I’ve noticed that every summer, the number on my weather app increases. I went from suffering through days in the 90s in my early childhood, to not leaving my house for days in a row years later, because the temperature will not drop below 110 degrees. When I was little, my parents told me the hottest they ever remember it getting here was 120 degrees. Back then, that number seemed so far fetched I believed someone would be cooked alive from it. Now, the temperature reaches 120 degrees and above several times every summer. 

Every summer, I watch as the slivers of greenery I cherish here slowly die under the sun. The joy I experience seeing the mountains turn green slowly fades, as I watch that color wiped clean off their surface by the wrath of the heat. I watch as the sky turns a blood orange in the evening, and flakes of charred mountain forests fall from the sky like a mockery of rain. I stare at the black remains of tree trunks outside my window as my father drives my family up the mountains. I smell the smoke as we’re visiting the high desert. I see the smoke on the other side of town. I fear the day the smoke reaches me. The heat has grown with me, and the fire has inched closer and closer. So much green has turned to black, which turns to ash, which turns to dust in the wind. 

When I first began visiting the desert, I didn’t have a favorite color. However, for years now, it’s been green. I remember the green that surrounded me, swallowed me whole into a paradise I’ll never forget, and raised me into who I am now. I look for that green wherever I go. I see it in the desert, and I see it in the mountains. I see their forests, their fields, and their hills, and I am terrified for them. I am terrified for the little girls that live in these forests. I am terrified that the color green will never raise them as it did for me. I am terrified for all the children that surround me, that they will only ever be raised by the bright light of fire.