{"id":4232,"date":"2011-07-19T08:10:50","date_gmt":"2011-07-19T12:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=4232"},"modified":"2011-07-19T08:10:50","modified_gmt":"2011-07-19T12:10:50","slug":"summer-splash-at-union-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=4232","title":{"rendered":"Summer Splash at Union Center"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Black-Eyes On Parade<\/p><\/div>\n

Hot diggety!\u00a0 The Black-Eyed Boys are in town!<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong.\u00a0 Green is good.\u00a0 Denizens of Greater Union Center know this well.\u00a0 Green means growth.\u00a0 Green means nourishment.\u00a0 Green means the future of this special place is assured, at least as much as it is in ones own power to secure ones own future.\u00a0 Green means photosynthesis is happening.\u00a0 That’s the miraculous wizardry by which plants receive sunlight (lot’s of that zinging around these hot, summer days) and carbon dioxide, and produce energy for growth, energy for life.\u00a0 Everyone around here knows that.\u00a0 Everyone around here appreciates that.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

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The Intense Greeness of Being<\/p><\/div>\n

The trouble, many are ashamed to admit, is that green is also, well, green.\u00a0 Gone are the showy lavenders and fuschias, the oranges and reds, the deep purples and shallow pinks.\u00a0 Green isn’t showy or flashy or fun.\u00a0 It’s workaday.\u00a0 Union Centerites must hang up their spring and early summer evening gowns and party clothes, and put on their endlessly green work clothes, the uniforms that insure their future survival.\u00a0 It’s funny, all the different words they use around here for green, that lovely, life-generating color.\u00a0 Here are a few of them: green, verdure, verdant, freshet, pampacil, blue-verde, grellow, schoengruen, springerly, budist, emeraldite, malachite, stalkish, leavellow, grayeen, greely, sapster, cyanic, beryl, and one of my favorites, greeverder.\u00a0 Each refers to different plants at different seasons, but all refer to variations of that great plant workhorse, green.<\/p>\n

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Golden droplets in a verdant ocean<\/p><\/div>\n

Not that green needs defending, but when there’s so much of it, like now, you get a little weary, especially in a place where, as we saw when we visited back in the spring, the forceful colors, like energetically defended opinions and viewpoints, can run riot.\u00a0 This sense of verdeweariness (another of their green words) can get the better of a lot of folks around here during the height of summer.\u00a0 That’s where the Black-eyed Boys come to the rescue.\u00a0 Funny, they don’t arrive with a lot of hoopla or fanfare, no circus parade for this gang.\u00a0 No sir, they infiltrate, these boys do.\u00a0 Stealth is their game.\u00a0 Like black suited stage hands changing the set, these guests take their places silently, steadily, inexorably, putting themselves into positions until, at the urging of the afternoon sun, and with a silently mouthed, one, two, three, they put on their golden crowns.\u00a0 No individual Black-eye is that memorable, but all of them together become a gleaming treasure chest in our midst.\u00a0 Long-time residents let out a collective gasp at the sight, stunned, like they were the year before, and the year before that, at their brilliance.<\/p>\n

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Golden summer relief<\/p><\/div>\n

I suppose it’s nice, maybe even important, to keep a bright, golden hope nearby while you’re doing the heavy lifting.\u00a0 That’s what the Black-eyed Boys do for this neighborhood: they bring hope and also a little joy.\u00a0 Workers, like all the green ladies and gents crowding this place’s streets and byways, need to be reminded sometimes that the basic work, the unsung, the less showy, the common, is not only vital, but will lead, once again, to the bright and exciting.\u00a0 Want to know what I think?\u00a0 I love the colors, true, but I also love the greens.\u00a0 Not only does that color mean breath and life for me, I experience a peace and satisfaction simply looking at the great, verdant show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hot diggety!\u00a0 The Black-Eyed Boys are in town! Don’t get me wrong.\u00a0 Green is good.\u00a0 Denizens of Greater Union Center know this well.\u00a0 Green means growth.\u00a0 Green means nourishment.\u00a0 Green means the future of this special place is assured, at … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[498],"tags":[644,127,175,216,1075],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4232"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4232"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4330,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4232\/revisions\/4330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}