Mukilteo Musings

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Today I talk about gray. When you live here, you learn that "gray" is very general and that in fact there are endless shades of gray. We always joke about teaching our children the color of the sky when they are little. It is difficult to teach them the sky is blue; little Seattle children know it is gray! When my daughter was a toddler, I have a distinct memory of her covering her face in the car in her carseat when the sun was shining. She was crying and asking me to make the sun go away. "Where is the gray sky?!"

But gray can be beautiful if you look for it. At our nearest Puget Sound beach we have kind of a game we play and it is to point out the different shades of gray. The sky is light gray; the trees over on Whidbey are a dark greenish gray; the water is dark sloshy gray; and the pebbly beach is a mixture of every shade of shiny gray that exists. The Navy ships that pass by are gunmetal gray.

All of our houses tend to be some shade of gray--mine is chapel gray and trainsmoke. And our skin is pale--yes, gray. The only bright colors that stand out are the white and green ferries and the red roof of our lighthouse.

But when the sun does shine and our world is in color, it is spectacular and every shade of gray completely disappears. The water turns blue to match the sky; the mountains reveal themselves in pure whiteness; the trees turn green and even my house turns a lovely shade of taupe.