Green

"I went out to a hazel wood..."

Naw. Went out on the Corniche. I actually woke up at 0 dark thirty this morning and went out to walk by the Scientific Center at about 6:30. Well, well worth the impulse. I watched the waterfront come alive with trickles of joggers and fishermen, to be replaced with walkers occasionally producing bags of food to feed the local cats.

It was an incredible morning, with light breezes and cerulean skies and seas. Date palms waving gently and the tick-tick of distant sprinklers. If my work day started only an hour later, I'd be out there every morning and probably a better person for it.

I hi the Sultan Center on the way home (absolutely and delightfully deserted, bless all those late sleeping Kuwati hearts!) and discovered...sage plants in the veggie isle! I've actually been looking for sage in any form since Christmas, and only found dried sage a couple weeks ago at a local Co-Op. Sage, with roots and a potential life span past next week, was more than I had dreamed of. Sage came home with me, along with his friends Thyme, Rosemary (no Parseley, you 70's misfits) and Basil.

I arranged them on my dining table at home, and went in the kitchen to fix some breakfast. As I walked in the Living Room with a plate of bread, it hit me. They smelled good. They looked good. Light from the window filtered through the leaves, and a knot I wasn't aware of having loosened in my shoulders. Green...felt good.

I ate breakfast pondering my new wealth, pondering the color of wealth. Green is wealth, the color of plants, which means water is nearby. Those who have water, have plants, have wealth. Herbs on my table had changed my entire flat. I couldn't stop looking at them.

The "Durrr" voice in the back of my head pointed out that 1. it was still early 2. it was still Saturday and 3. the car had gas. Why not visit the Plant Souq?Pick up a couple of plant pots, maybe a fern?

What followed was probably the most pleasant couple of hours I've ever spent in Kuwait. Definitely, they made me forget for a little while that I was in the desert. I started at one end of, maybe 20 nurseries in a row. I walked in to cool shade and fountain demonstrations, I walked out amid rows of waving Almond saplings waiting to be purchased. I walked in to well equipped, tiled, shady conservatories, I walked out amid rows of strawberry plants and hanging ivy. All the time, my brain was ticking, 'That's Lobelia, and that's Lantana, and there's a Spider Plant, and Orange trees, and Ficas there, and I think that's chamomile...lots of mint and rosemary, but no sage and no basil. I did well. Marigolds, and Morning Glories...roses, lots of roses. This place has Powdery Mildew, not buying here."

While walking into another nursery, I came across about 15 men, two cars, a truck full of sod grass, and a policeman escorting an irate older woman in hijab into the back of a squad car. I have no idea how it started or how the sod truck got involved (as this was all in a parking lot), but the BMW got seriously f---d up. Living here has a sort of David Lynch-esque edge I can't quite get the better of.

The best of all, I was that I managed to get my hands on some white narcissus, a day away from blooming. You, reader, have no idea what this means to me. When a single stalk of Freesia alone can cost more than 5 American dollars here...to have white narcissus on my table means I am still part of a world where there's rain and clouds and green to the horizon. Paperwhites happen to be my favorite flower and my favorite scent.

I'd take a picture, but I lost my camera over Christmas and I haven't replaced it yet.