Gray

Gray. The psychologically neutral color. And yet there are so many flavors of gray. Sure, we all know the depressing gray of a rainy day. But there's the ephemeral gray of fog stealing between the trees at dawn. The solid gray of rock and stone. The delicate green-gray of lichen growing on the bare tree branches. There's the dramatic grays of a stormy sky. The soft gray of a mouse's fur.

Even that gray rainy day has many different qualities. Sometimes it's a soft gray mist. Sometimes it's a driving downpour. But isn't it odd that we think of rainy days as depressing when this is the water that nourishes us all? That gray is pretty important. Besides, those rainy days make it even more delicious to come inside to a warm house.

There are dark grays and light grays, silvery grays and purpley grays. Hard as steel, crumbly as concrete, solid as a rock. Soft as fur, a wisp of smoke, a fleeting mist.

As I am discovering with all these colors, gray was just gray before. But there's so much more to it.