Driving out of my neighborhood this morning, I was immediately struck by an impression that something about the landscape's appearance was very odd. We've been snow-less much of this winter so I knew it wasn't the absence of snow. Driving slowly due to the posted speed limit, I was able to perform a peripheral, one-eighty-degree visual scope, trying to put my finger on what was so odd-looking about everything, everywhere I looked. Every ground surface looked as if it was straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster movie about the cataclysmic end of the world. There was a brown-beige cast as far as my eye could see. Lawns, fields, median-grass.......everything had an other-worldly tinge of barrenness. The temperature held the perfect condition for a non-frosty look - not cold enough to produce the dazzling white of a hard frost brought on by warm ground temperatures connecting with the natural descendent nighttime moisture.
A typical winter-type frost leaves roofs, vehicles, walkways, trees, shrubs - even roadways at times, covered with a resplendent white sheen that serves as a perfect backdrop for the red brilliance of the Northern Cardinals and can even make sunglasses a necessity.
This was not what I was seeing.
A light dusting of snow can duplicate a winter-frost, landscape-frosting that would make it hard to spot a Polar bear sitting in plain view.
This was not what I was seeing.
Rather, I was seeing dullness, like that of a yellow cake mix topped with a caramel-colored confectionery. Tasty enough but boring as the dickens to look at. This is what I saw and at first it was quite unsettling and definitely ugly as could be. Even the unattractive month of March has nothing on the color of this morning's landscape. March usually has snow piles and snow banks that being melting, creating a chocolate-colored muddy mess that covers all surfaces and makes a clean car a pipe dream. That I am accustomed to seeing.
Not beige.
Mother Nature performed a sleight-of-hand trick that was visually unappealing. I'd really not care to see this trick again, thank you very much. No Standing "O" on this one.
Ancora imparo
