Winter palette

Driving to school today reminded me of what I do like about winter here: the colors. Or rather, the lack of them. The sky was overcast, rippled in shades of blue-gray; the snow reflected it. The sky and snow together drained evergreens to a dark charcoal, the same color as the bare trees, and tan stalks protruded from the fields' pale background. The colors are not the same, but the many subtle variations on a narrow range of color remind me of the high desert, with its delicate shadings of olive, sage, khaki and greige.

I've never become accustomed to the lush greens of summer in a climate with summer rains; to me, green is the color of early spring and of irrigation. Winter pales the landscape to something austere and restful, more familiar to me than the exotic shades of the rest of the year.