Somehow, the gray morning sky gives Northeastern Massachusetts a depth…no, a richness…to the infant greens that only a month before were nothing more than buds on the trees. Staring out the window of the MBTA commuter rail, the scenery passes in a blur of those greens and grays, and I thank whatever force is pushing me along the path I walk. It certainly is beautiful here, even on damp June mornings when the sun’s too lazy to peek out from behind its slate curtains.
Whatever. Keep your shades drawn, I’m doing enough looking for both of us.
It’s hard to not get lost in the beauty of this place without at once thinking of how it would have looked to a village of pilgrims, so enamored with the new world that even a grey morning like today would seem nearly majestic in conjunction to the cold British Isle they’d left months before. What would those eyes have seen? Were the banks of the cape teeming with wildlife? Did the children shout and play a medieval rendition of tag and point at the vibrant colors fighting for brilliance against a gloomy summer sky?
And what of the adults? Would faith-hardened eyes see the fragile spectacle as a boon from God? Or would they be wary of such wondrous instances of human weakness, suspicious of the mesmerizing nature in the world around them—nothing more than temptation in the guise of peace? The thought is upsetting: that guilt politics and societal shame could reduce the true wonders of God to nothing more than human sin peeking through the rosy lens of a muted landscape.
The greens and grays of the northern fringes slowly shift into the grays and grays of the concrete jungle in an almost jarring way. One moment, you’re passing Ipswich, completely sold on the idea that you’re staring over nothing more than a wide-reaching emerald carpet of marshland. The next, you’re violently struck with the whizzing sprint of buildings that mark the boundary of civilization, and you’re left longing for those greens that still exist but lack the abundance to make you truly feel at one with the atmosphere of this world.
By the time I reached Beverly, the awe and pure wonderment of the moment had subsided, and I was looking over a fully consumed human terrarium once again. My wonder, replaced with nostalgia. The mesmerizing radiance now just a gloomy memory of what I’d felt only half an hour prior.
But that’s the greatest part round-trip travel…
Before the days end, my eyes will once again be filled with the unspoiled brilliance of gray skies, and their intimate entanglement with the vines and ivy of the wild.