A Canvas of Blue & Greens

I remember coming home to Scotland from Israel one Saturday in April. The previous week had been bathed in the most unsympathetic yellows. 

In Israel, the scorching sun consumes the terrain. This white sky smothers the bleached city of Jerusalem, the sandy desert of the Dead Sea region, and even the flaxen vegetation of the Galilee area. The dry heated air rises from the baked land and bounces off every stone building. 

After months of what seemed like monochromatic grey saturated in wet, I yearned for that yellow sun light. I yearned for that yellow sun warmth. 

I was desperate for a tropical location, a beach in the Caribbean or the Mediterranean. I never cared much where that beach was in the moments when I closed my eyes to withdraw from my reality. 

I thought Israel would quench that vitamin D deficiency in my soul. Let me be clear. In many ways it did. 

Even though it was April, the temperatures flirted with 100 degrees. They never made it all of the way but danced so close. 

As a result of too much caffeine and not enough water for this stark environmental change, I hiked Masada and experienced my life’s first run in with heat exhaustion. Israel 1. My body 0. 

We started before sunrise hoping to summit as the sun rose. 500 feet below sea level, I cooked as I trekked. My parched body spent the next 24 hours desperately seeking homeostasis. Languid, I slept through the bulk of it. 

I found my yellow sun and my yellow warmth. But there were no green fields. There was no refreshing blue spring to quench my flaked lips. There was a beige mineral sea filled with more salt to dehydrate a human than any other sea on the earth. 

I came home to Scotland after a week in Israel on Saturday afternoon. Scotland’s color pallet was always soft. Scotland is a photographer’s dream come true. 

Pale lemon rays of sun sporadically pierced through tree branches which canopied the path on which I walked. The drizzle let up and the dull misty sky seemed to dissipate. 

I have a best friend. One of a handful. For many years, I studied him. During each minute together, I observed and examined. I knew his features. I knew his thought processes. I knew his character. Then one day, in the snap of a finger, an entire new side to him presented. This new dimension of him appeared, seemingly out of the blue, as he lay crumpled on my bed and I felt as though I never really KNEW him. 

I happily took in the Edinburgh before me. In the snap of a finger, it was a canvas of blue and greens. Loads of lush greens. Lime greens. Emerald greens. Jade greens. And just like my friend, this new dimension of Scotland appeared out of the blue, rather, below a soft steel blue sky. Scotland is stunning. 

Sure, the memory of that invariant grey first semester is forever fixed in my mind. 

Still, when I think of Scotland, I recall later that Saturday evening. Just two days after Masada, I hiked a grassy verdant highland hilltop whose summit was crowned by a medieval castle. I climbed the stairs and sat balanced on the guard wall, a deep trench below my feet, no longer filled with water, rather, plush velvety grass. I watched the fluid pink gold sunset glow like candlelight against the unending pastoral greens. Gentle. Silky. Seductive.